Scanner dipole: vertical or horizontal?

[Gilligan]

Okay, so maybe all this time I've had a misconception. When I used to talk on HF in the ham bands via SSB/CW, I always had my dipole horizontal to the ground. Now I've seen some dipole antennas for scanners and they are vertical. I see to remember reading somewhere that determinant for whether your antenna is horizontal or vertical depends on the mode. TV antennas (WFM) are horizontal, as well as SSB & CW, correct? So in that case, if I make a scanner dipole for VHF/UHF, for narrow-band FM, should it be vertical?

 

[N4JNW]

Ideally, you want to try and match the recieving antenna to the transmitting antenna, in terms of polarization.

Did you know, a dipole when less than one wavelength above ground, is almost omnidirectional?

TV antennae are horizontally polarized, but television transmissions are neither vertical or horizontal. They're circular.

For best performance, yes, you want to match polarizations, but it's not always a nessecity. You'll still recieve vertically polarized transmissions on a horizontal antenna, and vice versa. However, you might lose a couple dB in gain.

 

[Gilligan]

However, you might lose a couple dB in gain.

Well, I definately don't want to do that. That would kind of defeat the purpose of putting up a gain antenna...

 

[k9rzz]

Okay, so maybe all this time I've had a misconception. When I used to talk on HF in the ham bands via SSB/CW, I always had my dipole horizontal to the ground. Now I've seen some dipole antennas for scanners and they are vertical. I see to remember reading somewhere that determinant for whether your antenna is horizontal or vertical depends on the mode. TV antennas (WFM) are horizontal, as well as SSB & CW, correct? So in that case, if I make a scanner dipole for VHF/UHF, for narrow-band FM, should it be vertical?

Yup, you've got it correct. By convention, the FM world of ham radio is all vertical, CW/SSB is all horizontal.