Scanner Antenna Y Connector?

[capt512]

Good Evening,

New to the board, and ready to learn!
I am currently a volunteer in the disaster response field, and just purchased a BC780XLT scanner. I am looking to mount the scanner antenna with an L mount on the rear fender in between the trunk lid and fender on my crown vic. So my question is this, years ago they made a Y connector, that would allow you to have a VHF and UHF antenna cut to appropriate lengths and then join them with the y connector, allowing you to connect one coax to the scanner.

I cannot find this anymore so maybe there is a better solution now. Is there a better solution for my mobile unit? I need UHF, VHF, and 800 MHZ to pickup in the vehicle.

Thanks!!!
-Jonathan

 

[buttons]

Quick solution; Buy a roll up (an antenna mount that clips onto the window frame of the car) and a radio shack 800 mhz antenna, The antenna is about 6 in long and is stamprd 800mhz in red . Quick and easy. I've dumped all of my roof mounts and gone this way. Works great on all bands.

 

[LarrySC]

You dont need to do the splitter thing. They make Tri-Band antennas now. Check your private messages.

 

[tonsoffun]

This is probably your best solution, a lttile expensive but there is no loss.
http://www.stridsberg.com/prod01.htm
Its the MCA204M

 

[dave3825]

This is probably your best solution, a lttile expensive but there is no loss.
http://www.stridsberg.com/prod01.htm
Its the MCA204M

I think he wants to use 2 antennas on one radio...

The products listed @ http://www.stridsberg.com/prod01.htm will take one antenna signal and split it to multiable radios

They dont say that they are backwards compatible and might only work for splitting one signal to up to 8 receivers...

 

[RevGary]

The Larsen NMO 150/450/800 model is a proven performer and is fairly inexpensive. We have used these on our response vehicles since 2001.

http://www.tessco.com/products/displayProductInfo.do?sku=427126&eventPage=1

 

[OceanaRadio]

I think he wants to use 2 antennas on one radio...

The products listed @ http://www.stridsberg.com/prod01.htm will take one antenna signal and split it to multiable radios

They dont say that they are backwards compatible and might only work for splitting one signal to up to 8 receivers...

He was indeed asking for a way to use two antennas with one scanner receiver, which makes no sense to me. That's why scanner antennas are multi-band. But as to your question, I would suspect that most multicouplers that are not active (amplified to overcome insertion loss) might be compatable in either direction, for RX only.

Jack

 

[tonsoffun]

I think he wants to use 2 antennas on one radio...

The products listed @ http://www.stridsberg.com/prod01.htm will take one antenna signal and split it to multiable radios

They dont say that they are backwards compatible and might only work for splitting one signal to up to 8 receivers...

Thats what these are made for, to use multible antennas to one radio and are active multicouplers.
Lots of people use these to have antennas matched to there frequencies of choice.
Take care

 

[capt512]

thanks for all the responses! The main reason I wanted to use two antennas was, years back I was told that using 2 tuned antennas will give you better reception than 1 multiband untuned.
It seems that the NMO 150/450/800 pointed out by Rev, may be more around what I need. So my question is, is there a site that you would recommend for the mount? I looked at the mounts on that site, but can't find the L mount. The mount I need looks like this

 

[RevGary]

Most any Radiall-Larsen antenna products dealer or commercial two way radio dealer can supply the L bracket and the NMO mount as well as the NMO150/450/800 antenna. Check your local phone book under "Radio - Two way" or "Radio - Communications" I'm in a fairly small community and there are 4 dealers here that supply these items, so you shouldn't have much trouble... best of luck!!

(You can always bend your own bracket out of 20 gauge galvanized steel and drill your own 3/4 inch mount hole and 3/64 inch screw mount holes. This is a compact antenna with low road speed wind loading so 20 gauge steel works very well in this particular application. A visit to your local sheet metal shop may even net you a 'free' piece of scrap metal for the bracket).

 

[DickH]

... We have used these on our response vehicles since 2001.

What's a "response vehicle".?

 

[prcguy]

Another tri-band antenna to consider is the Maxrad BMAXSCAN1000B. I have a few Larsen tri-banders but the Maxrad seems to have a slight advantage on VHF hi and VHF air band. If you want the best performance you can still do the multiple antenna thing and use a Diplexer or Triplexer to properly combine the antennas with minimal loss.
prcguy

 

[dave3825]

Thats what these are made for, to use multible antennas to one radio and are active multicouplers.
Lots of people use these to have antennas matched to there frequencies of choice.
Take care

Thats not what those are used for...

The first line states
The basic use of the receiver multicoupler is to enable several radios , or scanners, to share a common antenna system.


Reading this tells me I can use more than one scanner off the same antenna...
Not use one scanner off multible antennas...

 

[RevGary]

What's a "response vehicle".?

(Answered in detail in Private Messaging...)

 

[tonsoffun]

Thats not what those are used for...

The first line states
The basic use of the receiver multicoupler is to enable several radios , or scanners, to share a common antenna system.


Reading this tells me I can use more than one scanner off the same antenna...
Not use one scanner off multible antennas...

Dave3825,
You are totally correct. I completely missunderstood what he was asking(confused ), and I actually use a multi-coupler to hook up 1 antenna to multible radios, so don't ask what I was thinking.
Thanks for clearing that up Dave3825

 

[dave3825]

Now my question is

I have one of these Directv multicouplers

Will this work if I run my antenna to the Ant in and be able to use up to 4 scanners????

I does have a seperate power input of 10 volts since in my application there would not be lnb power present

I does say 5 - 860 / 960 - 2.4 Ghz

 

[prcguy]

Sort of, but not really. I believe that model has a passive antenna feed through and you could stick your VHF/UHF/800 signals in the ANT port and higher freq antenna signals into the LNB V 13/14V port and it would combine them and split them 4 ways at the individual RX ports. It has a bit more loss than using a simple 4-way divider for this purpose. If you feed anything into the LNB H 17/18V port, you would have to feed 17v up the coax to select whatever is in that port. It really doesn’t have a good use for scanners and such. It is designed to take in 2 separate polarities of a DirecTV or Dish LNB + off air TV signals from an antenna and feed them to 4 separate receivers and TVs. The receivers feed voltage up the coax and switch between 13 and 17v to select one of the 2 available polarities. At the receiver/TV end you would use a “diplexer” to separate the 950-2400MHz satellite signals for the DirecTV or Dish receiver and feed the off air TV antenna signals directly to the TV. This allows you to bring all the satellite and TV antenna signals into an area on only 1 coax.
prcguy

 

[tonsoffun]

Here's one of the ones I use and a few others on here as well with great results and I even compared it with the Stridsberg line and saw no difference in signal drop between the too.
http://www.electroline.com/en/products/drop_amplifiers/eda_ug/index.html
You can get these on Fleabay for dirt cheap.
Take care

 

[RISC777]

It seems that the NMO 150/450/800 pointed out by Rev, may be more around what I need.

And to throw another product that works well out for thought is Maxrad's 118 to 940 MHz "120 series" antenna (as prcguy commented, I've also found Maxrad to perform a bit better than others). NMO mount the same as Gary's recommendation. Works great on VHF, UHF, and 700/800. Ships at 24" length, and includes a chart for cutting to tune to spcific frequencies. Though I found not cutting mine it works well on all.

 

[RISC777]

Here's one of the ones I use and a few others on here as well with great results and I even compared it with the Stridsberg line and saw no difference in signal drop between the too.
http://www.electroline.com/en/products/drop_amplifiers/eda_ug/index.html
You can get these on Fleabay for dirt cheap.
Take care

Ron,
Their web site makes it appear that they require power. So, for a mobile/vehicle install an inverter would be required, correct? From their .pdf they have two models...one has two inputs with four out, the other with two in and eight out, correct? (I couldn't tell if either are filtered, such as 0 to 540 with the other input being 540 to 900 or 1 GHz...?)
`Doug