New Base Antenna

[KB4SHP]

Well I just plugs my New Pro 197 Scanner in to my Antenna Specialist Base Antenna that is 20 some
plus years old. It is the giant antenna specialist antenna that was offer back in the late 80's any way. It has
done an great job and still doing one on every thing but the 800 mhz system here in the county. So I dont know what base antenna to look at now. Discone or something else the county will be going 800 between now and 1st of the year. So i still need antenna that covers from 42 mhz all the way to 800. I have got new Lmr cable that i am also going to put up with this. Will the Discone work fine if i get one with the top radial for the low band 42-46 mhz? If so what brand Diamond or something else ? Thanks in advance And sorry if this is a re post I did a couple of searches with nothing Also it about 25-30 feet in the air

John

 

[khoelldobler]

Hi John,

If I may suggest to you, a Discone antenna. You can never go wrong with a discone. I have been using the Diamond D-130 for years... it stands up to the elements. Its one awesome scanner antenna. With the addition of the single vertical whip on top, you will be picking up those low VHF frequencies... down around 30 to 50 Mhz. It does an awesome job on 800 Mhz trunked systems too. One county over from me just installed a new 700/800 trunked system and I am picking them up also. I usually monitor the Ocala PD which is 800 analog trunked and I also monitor Marion County Sheriff's Office which is P25 800 digital trunked. This antenna also brings in skip freq's (46.10 and 46.30) from time to time... I have monitored volunteer fire companies from PA and I live 1200 miles away in central Florida. I sometimes switch back and forth between my all band discone and my yagi 800 Mhz antenna when monitoring my local Sheriff's transmissions, because I like the point to point signal reception I get when I aim the yagi antenna directly towards my closest transmit tower site which the Sheriff's office transmits from. The yagi antenna is great too, but its only capable of 800 Mhz bandwidth reception... its a single band - specific antenna. I use the yagi quite often, as there is not much left in my area transmitting in the VHF bands these days. But the Diamond Discone will most likely be one of your best choices. 30 feet high is reasonable for hieght, if residing in a residential nieghborhood... and choose a good quality coax (low loss) such as LMR-400 coax. I believe that the discone and the coax are available on the scannermaster website. Good luck to you

your RR friend Kevin

Current scanner line-up consists of:
1- Pro-106 w/ PSRedit500 & WIN-500 softwares
1- Pro-2006 Base (modified)
1- Pro-89 Race Scanner
1- Pro-2038
1- Uniden UBC3300XLT w/ BuTel ARC250 software

Current home outdoor antenna's consist of:
1- Diamond D-130 Discone (stock) All Band
1- SKY SCAN DX V1300 Discone All Band
1- MAXRAD MYA-8063 UHF Yagi 806-866 Mhz
1- KATHREIN-SCALA TY-840 Yagi 806-869 Mhz
1- Motorola mast mounted all band antenna
1- Workman CX-3 coax antenna switch
75 feet Times Microwave LMR-400 coax
75 feet Times Microwave LMR-400 coax
75 feet Belden 9913 RG-8/U 50 OHM coax
65 feet Commscope Cable 3227 RG8 coax

 

[KB4SHP]

Hello all just wanted to let you know i went for the Scanntenna from Antenna Craft. So far so good it does well on the 800 and the low band. The only reason i went this way is because of the price less than 40 bucks and it was shipped right to the door with the bnc adapter from soild signal.

 

[khoelldobler]

wow, that was qwik... you only posted your antenna question to this forum at almost midnight on August 3rd. You must have ordered the new antenna on the 4th, because today is Sunday morning the 9th. and you are informing us that it shipped, delivered, and up working already. You must have antenna elves working around the clock for ya. Best of luck with your purchase!

 

[ppremc]

Hello all just wanted to let you know i went for the Scanntenna from Antenna Craft. So far so good it does well on the 800 and the low band. The only reason i went this way is because of the price less than 40 bucks and it was shipped right to the door with the bnc adapter from soild signal.

I purchased one of these antennas back in the spring and I am well pleased and you will be too.