Help with antenna

[nihilissa]

Sorry if this belongs in antennas or Uniden...it felt kind of local. I'm living with my son right now. We just moved here. I cannot put up a pole or run things through the house. I have a Uniden BCD436HP. I have already replaced the duck with a Dimond RH77CA (this helped some, just in general). I *think* I'm trying to pick things up off tower location 4 in Casa Grande, which is 17 miles from the house. I'm from MO so the dry air, stucco housing and mountains are foreign obstacles (or helps as far as the air goes) to me. If I get a discone like a Tram 1410 will that be enough to get me Casa Grande fire/ems if it's on a picnic table outside (under supervision, I'd just unhook and put it in the garage it when I'm not using it). Or do I really need to rig up a painters pole that can drop down and a bucket of concrete or something for it to fit into? 😅

 

[Ubbe]

Fire/ems are on 155MHz and the RH77CA probably works equal to a discone at that frequency band. Try the scanner at the position where you have planned to have the discone and check if you can receive anything. Having a coax connected to the discone will attenuate the signal somewhat. If the scanner can receive the transmissions with 2 or 3 bars then it's probably fine to use a discone.

Antenna location are important, to have it as high as possible. If that Casa Grande fire/ems are most important to you then you can probably look at a specific VHF antenna with some gain. Some HAM VHF 145MHz antennas can be cut shorter to be tuned to 155MHz and can be installed higher up, perhaps outside a window if the roof isn't an option.

/Ubbe

 

[nihilissa]

Fire/ems are on 155MHz and the RH77CA probably works equal to a discone at that frequency band. Try the scanner at the position where you have planned to have the discone and check if you can receive anything. Having a coax connected to the discone will attenuate the signal somewhat. If the scanner can receive the transmissions with 2 or 3 bars then it's probably fine to use a discone.

Antenna location are important, to have it as high as possible. If that Casa Grande fire/ems are most important to you then you can probably look at a specific VHF antenna with some gain. Some HAM VHF 145MHz antennas can be cut shorter to be tuned to 155MHz and can be installed higher up, perhaps outside a window if the roof isn't an option.

/Ubbe

thanks!