What discone?

[Nightspell]

Hi all. Thought I'd throw some more newb fodder in for everyone to trip over. I'm in the market for an antenna, which will probably be mounted outside between 15 - 25 feet high. I have no experience with antennas and am shopping under the assumption that my best bet would be a discone of some sort. I emailed support at ScannerMaster.com and all I got was a pasted response of links recommending all of their available antennas. The two I was considering are the following:

WBD-40 Discone Base Antenna

or

DD1300 Double Discone Base Antenna

I'm scanning primarily Public Safety frequencies. Does the double discone offer something worth an extra $50? I'm open to any other recommendations, of course... Any advice offered would be very much appreciated! Thanks!

 

[Laxplurr06]

What it really comes down to between these antennas is what band you are monitoring. If the public safety in your area is between the 135-175 mhz and 410-475 mhz range then the Double Discone might be good for those stations that don't come in very well. Otherwise The standard Discone would be a good choice because the frequency range is 25-1300 mhz and will be a big improvement over a standard duck antenna. Just remember to buy high quality coax for the least loss such as LMR-400. If i was to buy another i would get the Diamond D130J Discone.

 

[Skypilot007]

I often recomend for people who want an antenna for basic VHF and UHF monitoring to look hard at some of the many dual band 2M/440 antennas available. I use a comet GP6 for VHF/UHF monitoring. It performs much better than the rat-shack discone even receiving on VHF low band quite well. I use a yagi on a rotor for 800/900 MHZ monitoring.

 

[Thayne]

I have 2 discones & they are great; especially if you get it as high as possible. I use one feeding into a multicoupler for only receiving, & one for transmitting & testing 2 ways.
The guy I work with brought over an anritzu and swept the antennas and they are remarkably flat over 50-1300Mhz. Even the dips are not bad and gave good swr's. It is a lot better for general use than having a bunch of different antennas. They are mounted on opposite sides on the peak of the roof on 10foot masts and fed with 1/2' hardline left over from a big job we did..

 

[MOTOROLANUT]

Ditto on the Diamond D130J, I run two and love em.

 

[prcguy]

Don't bother with the "Double Discone", I have one and am not impressed. I double ditto on the DJ-130, its reasonable quality for the price. If you want to go cheap the Workman brand Discones used to run under $30 and they have solid radials that won't fall apart like the RS Discone.
prcguy