California highway Patrol the higher up the better?

[1979lee]

I am trying to get better reception for the California highway Patrol there frequency are
between 39-43 mhz , is the higher up the better for my antenna?
my antenna is currently up on the roof of my singel story home at almost 20 feet from the ground , i am currently useing rg-58 cable and my antenna is a metal whip that resembiles the very long ones used by the chp in the 1970's, and is 8 ft long , it is 8 feet above the roof line , what else can i do to get better reception and performanec out of this antenna?

thanks for reading my long rant!

 

[kd7gxu]

Low Band Scanning

Sounds like you have a pretty good setup. One good thing about lowband is that the cable loss is low so you can get away with using RG58. I am assuming that you are in California so you probably should build a groundplane for your antenna. Make the ground radials at least 1/4 wavelength of your lowest freq that you want to monitor. Angle the groundplanes down toward the ground about 30-45 degrees as opposed to being level.

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You could also get a doublebracket from BuxComm and put two tuned whips on it forming a vertical dipole. I use a 102" whip to listen to the CHP's in the summer in June and July. I live in southeast Wyoming so the signals that I receive come from the sky. The signals that you want are the groundwave. I can actually hear the California and Missouri signals much better than I can hear the Nebraska Patrol from nearby.

If you really want to get serious, consider looking on Ebay for a lowband commercial radio in the 36-43mhz range. They are very cheap and will have much more sensitive receivers on that band. Most scanning activity is on 150-900mhz anymore, so scanner manufacturers don't worry too much about 30-50mhz.


Lowband is a blast to monitor when the conditions are right...

 

[1979lee]

thanks for the info , and yes i am in california (bakersfield) ,

 

[Al42]

and is 8 ft long

5-1/2 to 6 feet would be a better match to the frequency.

what else can i do to get better reception and performanec out of this antenna?

There's not much you can do on VHF-lo. Even mounting the antenna up high won't really give you much range, although anything up to 100 feet or so above average terrain will make it better. (That's why a lot of low band base stations are remotes, connected to the dispatch point by wire or microwave link, but located on tops of mountains.) Most of the "range" scannists get on low band is from skip, and that has very little to do with your antenna height.

 

[1979lee]

the groundplane idea sounds great and i found a nice one at BuxComm model GP146/440, but they don't take money orders for payment , so i need to find a place that sells these type of antenna hardwhere that will take a m.o.

So cutting my antenna to 5-1/2 to 6 feet would help me get 39-43mhz better?
will this affect my reception of the 108-136 and 406-956 bands?
my local police and fire are on the 154-156 mhz range and the sherriffs office is on the 453-464 range .

 

[Al42]

the groundplane idea sounds great and i found a nice one at BuxComm model GP146/440

Which won't do you much good at 42 MHz.

So cutting my antenna to 5-1/2 to 6 feet would help me get 39-43mhz better?
will this affect my reception of the 108-136 and 406-956 bands?
my local police and fire are on the 154-156 mhz range and the sherriffs office is on the 453-464 range .

Antennas work better when they're 1/4 wavelength long. You can't get a single-band antenna (which is what yours is) resonant (1/4 wavelength long) on a few bands. And there's really nothing out there that's good for 37, aircraft, 155, 450 and 850. About the closest you'll come is a Scantenna or something like the one you quoted above, although I prefer the Larsen 144/70. They're not too good on 37, but life's not perfect.

(And don't buy the 25-1300 MHz hype - there can't be any antenna that's resonant over that wide a frequency range until someone changes the laws of physics.)