Will this be a significant difference?

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Smerri

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I have a Uniden BCT-15 with the stock antenna. I was thinking of putting a Diamond RH77CA with a BNC Right Angle adapter onto it. However, the stock antenna is longer than the Diamond.

Will doing something like this be worth it, should I stick to the stock antenna, or are there any other recommendations? (Excluding roof-top/attic antennas).

Thanks
 

CLTX11

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Stock antennas are meant to be a "broadband antenna," depending on what you are wanting to monitor the Diamond will perform better in certain freqs.
 

Smerri

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CLTX11 said:
Stock antennas are meant to be a "broadband antenna," depending on what you are wanting to monitor the Diamond will perform better in certain freqs.
153.*** - 159.*** and 453.*** - 484.***

Are 99% of the frequencies I am monitoring.
 

jdelange

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I had the same idea... I ran 25' of cheap coax to the window in my room and mounted the RH77CA. No improvement. I monitor pretty much the same frequencies. I am going to buy a right angle adapter today and try that.
 

N1BHH

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jdelange said:
I had the same idea... I ran 25' of cheap coax to the window in my room and mounted the RH77CA. No improvement. I monitor pretty much the same frequencies. I am going to buy a right angle adapter today and try that.

The problem with running cheap coax is that you won't improve, in fact you will degrade your reception. The antenna needs a ground plane because it is designed to be attached to a radio, getting sufficient ground plane characteristics from the radio case. At the end of a piece of coax, you need radials because the antenna will now "look" like just a piece of wire and not work at the designed frequencies efficiently.

No adapters, just cut some lengths of wire, a couple for each range of frequencies you are interested in (approximately 7 inches for UHF, 19 for VHF and 3 for 800) then strip back an inch or so of insulation and solder them to an alligator clip and attach it near the base of the antenna where the coax is connected. You will get improvement. All you'll need to do is snip a little wire off (1/4-1/2") to get some improvements in reception quality.

Outdoor antennas actually work better than those indoors. A simple mag mount antenna outside on an air conditioner will work wonders.
 

hoser147

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I agree if your going to go through the outside antenna use good coax, or else your defeating your purpose. The Diamond will do great compared to the stock antenna for the range that you want to monitor however it is not to hot on anything 800............Hoser
 

NoRide

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The Diamond RH77CA in many cases, will be an improvement but as Hoser mentioned, depending on your locale, may tend to be deaf in the 800 range. I've found the RS800 antenna to perform better on all bands.
 

jdelange

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Well, to answer your question Smerri, I bought the right angle adapter today and tried it out. No improvement. The stocker is actually looking pretty good right now.
 

Smerri

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jdelange said:
Well, to answer your question Smerri, I bought the right angle adapter today and tried it out. No improvement. The stocker is actually looking pretty good right now.
Interesting.

Thanks for the info. Shame it doesn't work better or show any improvements.
 

i730silver

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New to the scanner world just got a psr300. Fisrt scanner ever own was thinking of upgrading the stock antenna to something different but for now will keep reading
all the threads for now.
 

N1BHH

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i730silver said:
New to the scanner world just got a psr300. Fisrt scanner ever own was thinking of upgrading the stock antenna to something different but for now will keep reading
all the threads for now.

You have the right idea, do some reading. The best place to look right now is on the antenna wiki for all your scanning needs. There are plenty there, do some research and don't be afraid to ask questions. The stupid question is one that isn't posed. Here's the place to start: http://wiki.radioreference.com/index.php/Scanner_Antennas

The best antennas are mounted outside and as high as practicable, fed with good quality coaxial cable, using the shortest, most direct connection. I get by with a couple mag mounts on the air conditioner with amazingly good results.
 
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