Outdoor Antenna question

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mmckenna

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I was wondering would this work as a good low-cost scanner antenna for picking 800MHZ?

They'll work. But they are not great antennas. For what they are, the prices are kind of high.
Also, they cover a lot of spectrum, usually 6/700MHz well up to 2500MHz. That certainly covers 800MHz, but not well, usually really wide band antennas are not so great when you are just looking at one slice of spectrum.

I ended up with one of the WeBoost log periodic directional antennas. Plastic antenna, fine for consumer cellular booster use, but I'd not use it anywhere else. Might be a useable option if you need a wide band directional antenna to reduce simulcast distortion or if you are on the fringes of coverage. If you -really- need the directional log periodic, you can find the exact same antenna for half the price. Even then, you're probably overpaying.

You'll get better performance out of a dedicated 800MHz only antenna. And you can probably find one a lot cheaper.
Less $ + Better Performance = better deal. Take the money you save and put it into better coaxial cable.

Discone antennas are an option, but they have 0dB gain and the patterns are less than ideal when you get up in the higher frequencies. You can do better if 800MHz is what you primarily listen to.
 
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