gonefishn1
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I was looking at getting this antenna. Any thoughts, pros or cons would be appreciated.
TRAM 1410 Discone Pros or Cons
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gonefishn1
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Can anyone tell me if this antenna is any good or not?
mmckenna
I ♥ Ø
I've never seen any of their base antennas, so no help there.
I have looked at their mobile antennas at various trade shows, and was not impressed. Chinese produced antennas for a few bucks less than the known US brands. I've preferred to stick with Larsen for most of my work and personal mobile antennas.
As for discone antennas, they are good at one thing, and one thing only- broad frequency use. They have zero gain, so are not stellar performers, doesn't matter who you purchase from.
If you must have a super wide band antenna and are willing to only install a single antenna, then a discone is probably a good choice. If you only need to listen to specific bands, or can properly combine antennas, dedicated single band or dual band base antennas will out perform a discone any day.
If the discone is the right choice for you, just make sure you install it properly, that includes proper grounding, sealed coax connections/weatherproofing, etc. Use decent quality coax to get the most performance out of these antennas. Since they have zero gain, you need to make sure you get as much signal down to your radio as you can.
I have looked at their mobile antennas at various trade shows, and was not impressed. Chinese produced antennas for a few bucks less than the known US brands. I've preferred to stick with Larsen for most of my work and personal mobile antennas.
As for discone antennas, they are good at one thing, and one thing only- broad frequency use. They have zero gain, so are not stellar performers, doesn't matter who you purchase from.
If you must have a super wide band antenna and are willing to only install a single antenna, then a discone is probably a good choice. If you only need to listen to specific bands, or can properly combine antennas, dedicated single band or dual band base antennas will out perform a discone any day.
If the discone is the right choice for you, just make sure you install it properly, that includes proper grounding, sealed coax connections/weatherproofing, etc. Use decent quality coax to get the most performance out of these antennas. Since they have zero gain, you need to make sure you get as much signal down to your radio as you can.
gonefishn1
Member
Thank you. Well its for my 536hp scanner so I would like a wide band antenna to replace the one that came in the box with it. I'm thinking a discone would be an improvement even with zero gain, like the zero gain little extending one in the box from Uniden.
mmckenna
I ♥ Ø
It would be an improvement just by getting something outside and up high.
Remember that (most of the time) VHF/UHF/700/800 frequencies are line of sight. That means the higher your antenna is the farther away your radio horizon is. Getting the antenna on your roof or higher will result in better reception.
The sticker is that the farther the antenna is from the radio the more signal you will lose due to coax cable attenuation. That means you'll need to use good coax cable.
LMR-400 is a good start. It's manageable, reasonably inexpensive, and will perform pretty well in most reasonable installations. Get it with the correct connectors to match your antenna and it'll prevent having to use adapters. On the radio end, make sure you do NOT try to connect directly to the scanner. This stuff is flexible, but it's heavy and can easily damage the connector. Use a short jumper of flexible cable, like RG-58, with the right connectors to match the end of the coax from the antenna and the right connector to match the antenna input on the scanner.
Just make sure you waterproof the outdoor connections. You do need to consider grounding and lightning protection, but I'll let you do some research on that.
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