Pro-197 mobile antennas

[AuToGrApHzZz]

Hi,




I recently bought my pro197 scanner and have been meaning to get a mobile antenna for my car. I am looking to spend less than $40. I looked at rs and scannermaster but was confused because from what I heard none of the mobile antennas have the ability to pick up the digital bands so I could use a recommendation from you guys.


More info: I live I. OC, California. Looking to spend >$40. Want best reception and ability to receive all bands. Thanks in advance.

 

[gewecke]

Hi,




I recently bought my pro197 scanner and have been meaning to get a mobile antenna for my car. I am looking to spend less than $40. I looked at rs and scannermaster but was confused because from what I heard none of the mobile antennas have the ability to pick up the digital bands so I could use a recommendation from you guys.


More info: I live I. OC, California. Looking to spend >$40. Want best reception and ability to receive all bands. Thanks in advance.

Digital transmissions vs. analog makes no difference where your antenna is concerned.
What's important here is IF your antenna is resonant on the bands you're trying to listen to? A magnetic all band r/s antenna will work fine for you,analog or digital.
n9zas

 

[RodStrong]

I think telling some folks here what you are wanting to monitor might help them recommend what type of antenna you might want to take a look at.

I use this antenna on one of my vehicles:

Larsen NMO150/450/800 Tri-Band NMO Antenna

I use it exclusively for 700/800mhz and largely digital trunking, so I can't comment on other bands, but I know it's a very popular scanner antenna.

I also have a cheapo on glass scanner antenna for another Pro 197 I have in a different vehicle. The digital trunking network I normally monitor is strong enough where a glass mount antenna is just fine.

Again, I think it all depends on what you are wanting to listen to, and whether it's simplex or repeated type stuff you want to pick up, or both.

Good luck.

 

[cbro298]

Is there a better antenna for the Pro-197 than the stock antenna? This will be inside only

 

[n5ims]

Is there a better antenna for the Pro-197 than the stock antenna? This will be inside only

This highly depends upon what frequencies you'll be using your Pro-197 for. The stock antenna is somewhat wide-bandwidth, low gain antenna. If you're mostly listening to systems in the 700/800/900 MHz band, try the Radio Shack or GRE (who makes it for Radio Shack) 800 MHz antenna.

If you mostly listen to another band, an antenna tuned to that band would work better. If you want to listen to all bands, well, you're pretty well stuck with having OK reception on some bands, better reception on one or two others, and worse reception on others.

Select your antenna based on what band (or bands) you want to receive best. There are single band antennas for VHF-Hi (also look at those for 2 Meter ham use), UHF (or 450 ham band use), and 800 MHz. There are also dual band VHF-Hi / UHF antennas that are easy to find. All of these should plug nicely (using a BNC right-angle adapter at least) to your Pro-197 if you get one with a BNC connecter.

If you want to expand from something that directly attaches to your radio, you can get a NMO mag mount that has a BNC connector on the end of the coax. Connect this to your radio and get an antenna that uses an NMO mount. Place this mount on something rather large and metal (an office file cabinet works well and is good to store your stuff as well) so you will have a ground plane for the antenna to use.

NMO antennas for this would include the Larsen 2/70 dual band (VHF-Hi/UHF), their 150-450-800 tri-band antenna that's used by many scanner folks. You can also use the Austin Spectra, which includes VHF-Lo/VHF-Hi/UHF/800. You can also find many different types of single band antennas that will provide some gain over those that connect directly to your scanner.