radioshack Stubby Antenna

[scanner99]

Has anyone used Stubby Antenna 1.7 inches not at the race track. I was thinking of using it on my bc246t while i go to police/ fire scenes so it is not hard to see. do you think this is a good idea? Will it work well? Its only 8 dollars. is that a good deal?

 

[zz0468]

Has anyone used Stubby Antenna 1.7 inches not at the race track. I was thinking of using it on my bc246t while i go to police/ fire scenes so it is not hard to see. do you think this is a good idea? Will it work well? Its only 8 dollars. is that a good deal?

A good idea in what way? A small antenna? Yeah, sounds great. Will it work well? Almost certainly not.

 

[dxradio2003]

Stubby Antenna

Hi,

Be advised that the stubby will work fine for close-by transmissions, however, a lot of police/fire transmissions are repeated. Mostly, you may be receiving transmissions from a mountain top or other location. Now if you program your radio to the actual transmit out frequency of the unit you are trying to pick up, the stubby will be perfect. Still, I have used the stubby with those limitations, and still pick up strong repeater stations.

---bob

 

[icom1020]

I bought one for my 97, its ok in an urban setting but in the sticks, no. It picked up the metro 800 trunked systems ok, but was marginal on vhf. It added more hiss to the signal

 

[W6KRU]

Around town my 396s work pretty well with just the sma-bnc adapter attached. :lol:

 

[Mike_G_D]

I purchased one of these for about $5 online when they were on sale. I was actually impressed; I didn't expect much and wanted it for low profile and high signal areas in which case it works fine. I also later purchased the "Race-tenna" from Scanner Master here: Race-tenna Portable BNC Antenna.

I was expecting basically the same performance between the two and was very surprised that the more expensive "Race-tenna" performed somewhat worse on all bands (UHF included) than the much cheaper RS stubby. The Race-tenna is better constructed mechanically and I would like to make more use of it but the performance is so much worse (than the RS stubby) that its usefulness is limited; I would use only when the better mechanical construction was really necessary and in very high signal situations. I wish I had a network analyzer or antenna analyzer handy to really characterize the two as I am very curious why so much difference between them (of course, maybe I just got a dud for the Race-tenna).

Anyway, even at $8 for high signal low profile use I think the RS stubby is an ok deal. If you can get it on sale like I did at about $5 then it's definitely a reasonable deal!

-Mike

 

[memph33777]

stubby antenna

i use it on my pro 96 digital in memphis and also on my pro 83 and it works great on both. also it is very discreet i can put my pro 83 in my back pocket and nobody knows i have it.

 

[nanZor]

At the track that should be fine. Especially if you are using a scanner that has a real hot front-end prone to overload, and needs attenuation being so close to the action. I'm not sure if the 246 has a hot front-end or not.

In fact, Uniden produced the Radio Shack Pro-137 "race 1000" and provided a very short stubby along with the normal antenna for just such usage. Looks like a 346/396 in blue/silver.

It's a good tool for this type of usage at the track. Elsewhere, run something better.

 

[Awesomeman92]

For 800mhz systems, good. Everything else, horrible. Couldn't get NOAA Weather to come in with it. But my local police (on a 800mhz analog TRS) comes in clear as a bell with it on the back of my Pro-197. Not good on the state 800mhz simulcast P25 system, but then again nothing is.

 

[W2NJS]

Hamfest, racetrack, other similar simplex apps they're fine. Otherwise they stink, but I like the way they look.

 

[Warthog1]

It always pays to have different antennas on hand. When I need a stubby type antenna, I use a Motorola 800 MHz antenna, and it works suprisingly well for above 150 MHz. At that cheap price, go ahead and get it, if you can get a salesperson who wants to talk about something other than cellphones . This hobby is about experimentation..

 

[KC0FZZ]

...I was thinking of using it on my bc246t while i go to police/ fire scenes so it is not hard to see. do you think this is a good idea? ...

No. No it's not.

 

[Daniel_Boone]

When I lived in Mooresville NC and worked in the industry, we were affiliated with Racing Electronic's. RE
Racing Electronics - #1 Source For Professional Race Communications - Online Store

Working in an environment where most everything is encouraged to be made smaller and smaller - they actually bought into the idea of using a YAGI antenna on the pit box because of all the problems with the UHF frequencies and traveling from town to town and the fact that some tracks are quite large in size.

My suggestion to you is to buy quality products from quality distributors and forget about most anything sold in the Radio Jap.

Racing Radio's is also a good source for any of your communications needs.

If this race is a one time deal, I would suggest that you rent a couple of raceceivers with all the frequencies pre programmed.
The nice thing about them is - you can get one radio or two radios which will have the head sets and boom mic's so you can listen to your favorite teams and yet carry on a conversation between two people sitting in the stands.
A place like Charlotte or Bristol - if you don't have a radio like that - forget trying to have a conversation with the person sitting next to you during the race. Plus it also protects your hearing. If you look at the prices of these set ups - they are quite expensive to purchase.

They will ship them to your house a few days before the race and you can use them as you please and then a couple of days after the race - you send them back and there is only a slight fee for using them for a whole week.

If you have a problem - they usually have a tent set up at the track and they can exchange the broken radio for a different one for no charge.

Or you can take your own quality scanner to the track and they will download the frequencies into your scanner for you - for a price.
Racing Radios - The Leader in Racing Communications Worldwide for 30 years

In the long run, it is a lot cheaper to either have them program your radio for you or rent you a radio then what it is for you to buy your own radios - for a one time ordeal or try to program them manually - because the frequencies change from track to track.

At times there is conflicts between some of the teams radio frequencies and locally used frequencies - garbage trucks, local trucking companies, utility companies etc - and that is the reason why they sometimes have to change their operating frequencies from track to track.