designeq
Member
I’ve run into an issue with my recently-purchased SpectrumForce wide-band antenna (SpectrumForce Wideband Antenna with Mag Mount and BNC | Scanner Master) that has me baffled.
I primarily use two handheld scanners—my GRE PSR-300 and my Whistler TRX-1. The GRE is a much better radio and always outperforms the TRX. The TRX misses the beginnings of some transmissions and misses others altogether. In order to “equalize” their performance, I thought to get the SpectrumForce antenna, with the primary logic being that if I could mount it up high, it would pull in a better signal than the rubber duckies I use on the scanners. This SpectrumForce antenna has generally received good reviews.
I have it mounted on a window ledge at 9 feet. While this isn’t extremely high, it has a much better line of sight than my handhelds. But so far the only real improvement I’ve seen seems to be on the air band.
The thing that has puzzled me is this: I listen to two trunked systems: Clackamas County and Multnomah County (in Oregon).
While the systems in Multnomah County come in ok with the SpectrumForce antenna (but no significant improvement over the ducky) the antenna seems basically deaf to the Clackamas County system. I don’t understand how this can be.
On my handhelds, I use the RS800/Remtronics REM-800 800 MHz duckies. I’ll listen to one scanner with the ducky and the other connected to the SpectrumForce antenna with both scanners scanning the same systems. The one connected to the SpectrumForce picks up almost nothing in the Clackamas County system, but the Multnomah system comes in ok. Then I switch the antennas and I see the same thing in the new configuration—the scanner connected to the SpectrumForce loses the Clackamas County signal and the one with the ducky gets it fine.
So I am completely confused. These are both 800 MHz trunked systems. Why would the SpectrumForce antenna pick up one system and not the other? Both systems come in pretty good with just the duckies.
I can speculate that the SpectrumForce doesn’t really enhance the reception because it is a general wide-band antenna and the signal lost from the thin coax maybe overcomes any gain I would get with the higher mounting. But none of this explains why one trunked system comes in fine while the other doesn’t.
Does anyone have a clue as to what might be causing this or have suggestions that would help me bring in Clackamas County when using the SpectrumForce antenna?
I primarily use two handheld scanners—my GRE PSR-300 and my Whistler TRX-1. The GRE is a much better radio and always outperforms the TRX. The TRX misses the beginnings of some transmissions and misses others altogether. In order to “equalize” their performance, I thought to get the SpectrumForce antenna, with the primary logic being that if I could mount it up high, it would pull in a better signal than the rubber duckies I use on the scanners. This SpectrumForce antenna has generally received good reviews.
I have it mounted on a window ledge at 9 feet. While this isn’t extremely high, it has a much better line of sight than my handhelds. But so far the only real improvement I’ve seen seems to be on the air band.
The thing that has puzzled me is this: I listen to two trunked systems: Clackamas County and Multnomah County (in Oregon).
While the systems in Multnomah County come in ok with the SpectrumForce antenna (but no significant improvement over the ducky) the antenna seems basically deaf to the Clackamas County system. I don’t understand how this can be.
On my handhelds, I use the RS800/Remtronics REM-800 800 MHz duckies. I’ll listen to one scanner with the ducky and the other connected to the SpectrumForce antenna with both scanners scanning the same systems. The one connected to the SpectrumForce picks up almost nothing in the Clackamas County system, but the Multnomah system comes in ok. Then I switch the antennas and I see the same thing in the new configuration—the scanner connected to the SpectrumForce loses the Clackamas County signal and the one with the ducky gets it fine.
So I am completely confused. These are both 800 MHz trunked systems. Why would the SpectrumForce antenna pick up one system and not the other? Both systems come in pretty good with just the duckies.
I can speculate that the SpectrumForce doesn’t really enhance the reception because it is a general wide-band antenna and the signal lost from the thin coax maybe overcomes any gain I would get with the higher mounting. But none of this explains why one trunked system comes in fine while the other doesn’t.
Does anyone have a clue as to what might be causing this or have suggestions that would help me bring in Clackamas County when using the SpectrumForce antenna?