Antenna for Military and Civilian Air

Status
Not open for further replies.

erico

Member
Premium Subscriber
Joined
May 30, 2003
Messages
16
Location
Tracy, California
I have been monitoring military and civilian aircraft for almost 30 years. I have tried a number of different antennas, including many discones, DPD production antennas, air band ground planes, multi-band ham etc... I have always felt I was not hearing everything I could with a good antenna setup. I have recently come up with a solution that is working really well for those that are interested. I am using KB9VBR slim jim antennas, one tuned for air band and one tuned for 310 mhz. I have a number of KB9VBR slim jim antennas that I use for transmitting and receiving, and they all work really well. I use the slim jim antennas because they are a very quiet antenna. My monitoring location has a high noise floor on VHF. The slim jim design seems to help reduce noise problem. I feed the antennas to a SSE diplexer, then to a PAR scanner filter, then a stridsberg multicoupler.

Every monitoring location and other factors are unique. This solution seems to work better than all the other antennas I have tried, for an omni-directional antenna at my location.

Receivers and scanners that I have used with this setup are; Uniden BCD996XT, BCT 15, AOR AR8600, AR8200, and Icom R20. They all responded well.

The antenna on the right is just a 2 meter 5/8 wave ground plane type antenna.

IMG_0236(1).jpg

IMG_0235.jpg
 

vagrant

ker-muhj-uhn
Premium Subscriber
Joined
Nov 19, 2005
Messages
3,150
Location
California
It covers the full 118-136MHz and 225-400MHz bands with a separate connector for each band in a 7 1/2 ft long tube and they are used at many military airports. VHF/UHF Dual Band Antenna Omni 118-136/225-400 MHz | Antenna Products Corporation
Other than the 118-136 MHz coverage, would you say that the DPV-39 works as well, better or worse than the AT-197A/GR discone around 225-400 MHz?

I am getting pretty good military air coverage with the 197A discone, but there is a terrestrial station about four miles away that I am not getting. I am encouraged to RX that particular station, as it broadcasts the scramble order for the fighters as well as the details they need whether an exercise or actionable event.
 

prcguy

Member
Joined
Jun 30, 2006
Messages
15,228
Location
So Cal - Richardson, TX - Tewksbury, MA
I don't remember how the DP-39 tested against my AT-197 but I did trade off the 197 after getting the DP-39 if that means anything. For the same mast height the UHF portion of the DP-39 would be about 5ft higher than a Discone on the same mast.

I now use an 11ft long 4 bay thing for 225-400 reception and I might even trade that off some day as I don't seen to be scanning as much these days.

Other than the 118-136 MHz coverage, would you say that the DPV-39 works as well, better or worse than the AT-197A/GR discone around 225-400 MHz?

I am getting pretty good military air coverage with the 197A discone, but there is a terrestrial station about four miles away that I am not getting. I am encouraged to RX that particular station, as it broadcasts the scramble order for the fighters as well as the details they need whether an exercise or actionable event.
 

Eugene

Member
Joined
Dec 19, 2002
Messages
584
Location
Portsmouth, VA
If you don't mind me asking....where did you get the DIP2002 filter you have shown.......?? Thanks.

Eugene KG4AVE

Never mind.....if I had waited 30 seconds I would have found the website.......Thanks anyway
 

dave3825

* * * * * * * * * * * *
Premium Subscriber
Joined
Feb 17, 2003
Messages
7,440
Location
Suffolk County NY
There are other diplexers good for separating or combining the VHF/UHF air bands. I use a Comet CF-142 that passes 1.5 to 150MHz on one port and 200 to 480MHz on the other.


I like to monitor vhf 46 to 162 ish. but need 700/800 for our public safety. And 450 to about 485 business and t-band. Not really into the mil air right now as I am in an apartment.

I think something like the Diamond MX3000 might do the trick (except for the PL-259 and N connectors). 1.6-160 350-500 850-1300. Since you have these , can you tell me how sharp is the cut off? I mean it says 1.6 to 160. I listen to marine and some of the rx freqs go as high as 162.000. Would that be able to be heard or would the filters block it? And the same with the mid pass. I listen to a 500 mhz trunked system that starts at 501.000 and ends at 502.825.
 

Ubbe

Member
Joined
Sep 8, 2006
Messages
8,944
Location
Stockholm, Sweden
I have a triplexer MX-627 and are probably of the same quality and the middle band are specified as 110-170MHz and it starts to cut off with -3dB at 95MHz and 210MHz and -25dB at 80Mhz and 230MHz. So it goes out of band quite a far way. The upper band are specified to start at 300MHz and it's down -3dB at 290Mhz and goes between 4-8dB down to 230MHz where it drops sharply. The low band specified up to 60MHz are -3dB at 85MHz and -25dB at 100MHz.

/Ubbe
 

ka3jjz

Wiki Admin Emeritus
Joined
Jul 22, 2002
Messages
25,361
Location
Bowie, Md.
Well the name should be a clue (heh); I strongly suspect this would be omnidirectional - vertical antennas like this tend to be that way. Mike
 

questnz

Member
Joined
Nov 18, 2009
Messages
668
Are the Omni antennas directional or does it not matter? Looking at the Omni-x to put up in spring.

I think is called Omni for omnidirectional, my Omni-x just sitting on the 3 m above roof line and no pointing in any particular direction. Get it you want be disappointed.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top