100 ft tower; discone or Scantenna?

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mancow

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I have a BCD536HP currently connected to a 4 bay vhf antenna at around 100ft on a tower. We are going to install a dedicated scanner antenna for it.

Thoughts on which to use; a Diamond discone that we have on hand or one of the Scantennas?

I'm sure both would be fine for Vhf through 800 but I'm thinking the Scantenna would provide better lowband performance.
 

ab5r

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Is Scantennas still available? Thought that they had been discontinued.
 

TailGator911

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With 100ft of tower, why not both? My mast is only 25ft and I have both a directional yagi and a discone on it, and my 35ft HF longwire based to it. Everything works perfect for what I monitor.

PS: For the life of me I cannot figure out how to rotate my pics, they all come out this way. Sorry about that


JD
kf4anc
 

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KR7CQ

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My guess is that a scantenna would be ripped to shreds in the first year at 100'. I know it would be in the summer monsoons in Phoenix. Aren't scantennas somewhat famous for disintegrating? A Diamond discone would hold up much better in my view. Mine survived a recent microburst with short bursts of 100 MPH wind that ripped a very strong tree apart in my front yard. My discone was untouched.
 

Citywide173

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Either antenna would do fine for reception, but I believe a discone would hold up better at that height. Also, what kind of coax/hardline are you using. At 100', you might lose more with poor coax than you gain in line of sight.
 

iMONITOR

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My guess is that a scantenna would be ripped to shreds in the first year at 100'. I know it would be in the summer monsoons in Phoenix. Aren't scantennas somewhat famous for disintegrating? A Diamond discone would hold up much better in my view. Mine survived a recent microburst with short bursts of 100 MPH wind that ripped a very strong tree apart in my front yard. My discone was untouched.


Especially in Kansas, what could go wrong? :confused:

 

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KR7CQ

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LOL, I missed the OP's location....Kansas. Yeah, I don't see a scantenna living long on a 100' tower, and a commercial grade antenna might be a wise investment so that extra trips don't have to be made up and down a 100' tower.

On the coax I wouldn't go less than LMR400, and with 800 MHz being important even that might be marginal depending on the overall situation.
 

mancow

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I would have used both but it's a remote Proscan receive site and I don't yet have a USB controlled antenna relay.

We ended up using the scantenna for now. So far it's pretty amazing. The amount of military aircraft stuff is great. I am hearing both sides of many transmissions (ground and air). It very will might get ripped to shreds but if it does I'll use the discone. By the way, I was wrong. It's 80 feet but still good enough.
 

NYRHKY94

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+1 for the DPD Omni-X all band antenna. New England weather beat the heck out of two Scantennas at 35'. I replaced them with the Omni-X and never looked back. Better reception across all bands and built like a tank. Something to consider if your Scantenna needs to be replaced down the road.
 
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