Electroline 2800

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737mech

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Ok guys I'm joining the Electroline club, just ordered the EDA2800. Giving this a try, seemed affordable and the port isolation numbers are higher than my current splitter. Gonna feed it with my DPD/LP 9913 coax 80ft, into PAR FM and PAR 162VHFSYM. I'm hoping the +4db isn't too much for the scanners. I will post results next week and welcome comments and opinions. The actual math is this (+8db for the dpd/lp, -4db for thecoax, ?? for the PAR filters, and some minor - for adaptors, then the EDA2800 +4db) I saw that modified EDA with BNC connectors, don't think I need to go that far with this setup. OBTW the current splitter is a Streren 201-234 from Fry's. Not bad, (-9db) but I still get scanner to scanner problems, the port isolation is only 20db so maybe the EDA2800 with 25db will be just enough to overcome that problem.
 

737mech

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EDA-2800

The EDA-2800 arrived today, easy to install. I'm glad I did this. For less than $40 it was worth a try. Things are better than they were with just a splitter. Expected results as the signal is back in the (+ db) side. You guys that posted about the Electroline drop amps... Thank you!!
 

737mech

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EDA 2802

This thread is leaning toward a full review of these drop amps. I found the 0 db gain version the EDA UG2802 and can compare to the 2800 if anyone is interested. Can only tell by looking at RSSI results on freescan. For one example the numbers I'm getting with the 2800 (+4db) from airport freqs nearby are 750-900. The tower gives me 908 and planes on the ground 750-800. Nice and clear!! The 2802 (0db) yeilds about 100 less on the RSSI 800 tower and 650 planes on the ground also a little fuzzy.
I hope posting this info will help people looking for information and possibly buying the Electroline. One word of caution, the newer models offered by Electroline are touting an active return path as in amped. I'm not so sure that would be a good thing for a multiple scanner setup? Don't get me wrong I'm sure that's a great thing for cable and internet tv signals and modems. But back on the subject using these for many scanners one antenna, look at the specs. The 2802 has 8 ports and 0db gain no loss at each port. The 2800 has 8 ports each with +4db gain. I was worried about the gain because I live in a high rf area, lots of cell towers and nearby radio stations. The +4db is ok, wasn't enough to overload the front end of the scanners. Again I found the 2800 for less than $40 and the 2802 for $28. Thumbs up!
 

zz0468

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I would seriously question the use of an active return path on a multicoupler used with a bunch of scanners.

Also, lacking any test equipment, there's a test you can do to see if the preamp is actually helping. Put your scanner on it's antenna with no preamp and find a steady, reliable, but noisy weak signal. A distant trunking system control channel might be good. A wx channel on VHF would be good as well. It's just gotta be very noisy and barely readable, but there long enough to swap some cables around.

Do a comparison on these weak signals with and without the drop amp. I'd be really curious to see how it stands up. The noise figure is spec'ed at 3 db, which is probably a bit better than your scanner. But that's over a pretty wide frequency range. Wide band amps where the NF is spec'ed over the entire range will show a graph showing different NF values by frequency. The 4db gain is low enough that it's not likely to cause you any problems.
 

Eng3ineer

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zz0468

Just got my new Electroline in few days ago... Don't have any meters, so I gave the unit a test using the WX channels. With the radio hooked straight to antenna I was able to hear three loud and clear and two great had a little static and other two could make out but quite bit static.

Hooked up the Electroline and all seven came in loud no more static, but now three of channel's while clear you can hear the other WX channels bleeding over to them.

Currently using mine for my railroad feed and while listen i'm now picking up quite bit more of train crew radio traffic. Just this evening was able to hear a Coal train and the power plant talking back and fourth and i've never been able to pick this up before and it's good 25-30 miles away from my home.

For 35 bucks vs the 150 or more bucks for the others, it was worth a try and so far it's seems to be working great.

Jason




I would seriously question the use of an active return path on a multicoupler used with a bunch of scanners.

Also, lacking any test equipment, there's a test you can do to see if the preamp is actually helping. Put your scanner on it's antenna with no preamp and find a steady, reliable, but noisy weak signal. A distant trunking system control channel might be good. A wx channel on VHF would be good as well. It's just gotta be very noisy and barely readable, but there long enough to swap some cables around.

Do a comparison on these weak signals with and without the drop amp. I'd be really curious to see how it stands up. The noise figure is spec'ed at 3 db, which is probably a bit better than your scanner. But that's over a pretty wide frequency range. Wide band amps where the NF is spec'ed over the entire range will show a graph showing different NF values by frequency. The 4db gain is low enough that it's not likely to cause you any problems.
 

zz0468

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Just got my new Electroline in few days ago... Don't have any meters, so I gave the unit a test using the WX channels...

That sounds pretty typical. The Electroline stuff looks like it's got a pretty decent noise figure, and since it's designed to look down a cable with tightly controlled signal levels, it's overload performance is as good as it needs to be, in that environment. Put to an outside antenna with wildly varying signal levels, it's bound to run into some that overload it.

Glad to hear it works for you, though. If you ever get intermod bleeding through, there's a good chance that a weather frequency notch filter might help. Careful, though... weather channels are very close to RR channels.
 

Eng3ineer

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That sounds pretty typical. The Electroline stuff looks like it's got a pretty decent noise figure, and since it's designed to look down a cable with tightly controlled signal levels, it's overload performance is as good as it needs to be, in that environment. Put to an outside antenna with wildly varying signal levels, it's bound to run into some that overload it.

Glad to hear it works for you, though. If you ever get intermod bleeding through, there's a good chance that a weather frequency notch filter might help. Careful, though... weather channels are very close to RR channels.

So far no problem with the WX channel, but do have one RR channel that the local VFD dispatch channel comes in on but it was this way before the electroline as tower is within line of site of my mast and antenna just glad doesnt effect more channels. Lucky it's hardly used channel around here, so just locked it out scan list.
 

e737

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Glad to hear ! I have the ug-2402 4 port 0db gain one I bought last year NIB for 10 bucks it think. Probably the best 10 bucks I ever spent on this hobby.
 

737mech

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Ok I said I would post results after a few days of listening. So far I really like this drop amp. My trunked systems are awesome. My Airband stuff is better, there's a forest fire nearby and I get those comms clear. I am running seven scanners off the drop amp, not getting any problems (scanner to scanner) and until a Red Flag at Nellis happens again I can't report on milair all that much. I can hear them, there's limited flying (F-35's and 22's and a few F-15's and A-10's). Nothing near as busy as the pre-sequester days. So I have to give the drop amp a thumbs up vote. Thanks again to all the guys that figured this out before me!! Thanks also to radioreference.com for providing a forum to share this hobby.
 

Eng3ineer

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I couldn't agree more i've been listen as well testing by moving radio's on and off the drop amp and it's made great improvement in alot traffic that I can pick up. Also put in on the 800 mhz trucked system here and i'm now picking up the little audio burst when user un-keys the mic. Never got that before. Been a great investment. Kinda wishing now i'd gone with 8 port vs 4 port.
 

KZ9G

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The active return will not affect your scanners the passband is from 5-40.
 

vagrant

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Glad to hear ! I have the ug-2402 4 port 0db gain one I bought last year NIB for 10 bucks it think. Probably the best 10 bucks I ever spent on this hobby.
I believe I got in on the same deal via Amazon. I purchased two at that low price. I have BCB issues with both AM and FM, so I use a HPN-30118 band pass filter. It works beautifully and allows me to receive signals I could not in the past in conjunction with the UG-2402, or with the antenna alone.
 

BCJ2

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Anyone know where I can get instructions to set up my EDA-2800? I bought one from ebay came with no instructions lol thanks for any info!!
 
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