base antenna help

[jvanderplaat151]

I am looking for some guidance with the purchase of my next roof top Scanner antenna. I have read the reviews and listed all the antennas that have been recommended since this Antennas and Coax Forum started. There have been some great discussions and a lot of sarcasm with the vague questions. It will need to cover these bands 40-50, 150-160, 450-460, and little in the 800 but primarily the police and fire 150-160.

I am looking for you guys to review the following antennas and list them by their overall performance from best to worst not taking into consideration their price. Does anyone recommend one over another or have strong opinions against any of these like it sucks or not worth the money

OmniX Multi Band Scanner Model Antenna
DPD Productions - Scanner / Radio Antennas for Commercial & Hobbyist Applications
Ferret 8 Band Base Antenna
Austin Antenna Ferret Omnidirectional Multiband Base Station Scanner Antenna

Diamond D130J Discone
Diamond D-130J Discone Antenna
ICOM AH7000 discone (DISCONTINUED)
ICOM AH7000 Discone Antenna ah-7000

ICOM AH8000
ICOM AH8000 Discone Antenna AH-8000
ApexRadio 703G-DA
ApexRadio 703G-DA 70MHz-3GHz Discone Antenna

Interoperable Tactical Antenna System
Sti-Co: Custom Antenna Supplier and Manufacturer: Interoperable Base
DD1300 Double Discone Base Antenna
DD1300 Double Discone Base Antenna

D-40A
Kreco Antennas - Welcome
WBD-40 Discone Base Antenna
WBD-40 Discone Base Antenna

 

[trooperdude]

You cannot really make a qualified review without getting one of each of these antennas and putting them on an analyzer to see EXACTLY what they will cover.

Physics doesn't lie. Marketing materials often do.

Discones all equally suck. Cheap or expensive. They are wide-band by design, pull in everything you do not want like paging intermod, and as a rule, perform poorly at UHF frequencies and above.

I can only tell from my personal experience.

Austin Ferret did not perform anywhere near the hype.

There really is no one antenna that performs well across all of the bands you specify.

Why not invest in an antenna SYSTEM. If 150-160 is primary then get a band-specific antenna to cover that band, and band-specific antennas for the other bands you want to cover, and a diplexer or triplexer to combine them at the receiver.

 

[FLRAILMAN]

Which antenna, hmmmmm

I personally have a couple of Austin ferrets which perform in the league with some of my commercial grade antennas, next would be the DPD omni-x which a friend has & it operates exceptionally well especially on the railroad & marine bands at his shack. Personally I think discones are useless except as coatracks at discos hence the name discone.
FLRAILMAN

 

[jvanderplaat151]

keep it up

Thanks for your replies. I have read allot about the combination of two or three antennas tuned to your specific listing pleasure using a diplexer or triplexer to combine them at the receiver. That seems to be the way to go if you are looking for optimal reception across several bands and have the space to mount multiple antennas. It is one of the few systems that stays consistent thought the forum with positive responses.
I know this will change some of your stories and probably should of mentioned it in my first post but I am only able to put up one antenna sorry.
I understand that it is also impossible to really make a qualified review without getting one of each of these antennas and putting them on an analyzer to see EXACTLY what they will cover. But I am sure that someone on this forum has purchased one or more of these antennas and upgraded to a different one that worked either better or worse such as your comments on the ferret.
My question about the ferret is did it perform better then the most expensive discone
What I find interesting is that you both are not fans of the discone but yet is the most recommended for wide-band reception on the forum. I also recognize that there may not be one antenna that really performs well across all of the bands but one must perform better then the other and that is the info I am looking for trying to narrow it down and combine thoughts in one thread

 

[N1BHH]

A discone is a compromise antenna. It has no gain. If properly mounted as high as practicable it will work quite well. It must be fed with high quality coax. I have one, it's not up presently and don't really like it, I get better results from my Larsen mag mounts. Try looking up the antennas from both Comet and Diamond made for the ham bands. You'll be pleased with them. Even though they are optimized for the ham bands, they do exceptionally well outside those bands. The X-series Diamond and GP-series Comet antennas are very good quality. Once again fed with quality coax they work quite nice. As long as there is a hunk of metal in the air, it will work.

 

[kb5udf]

Comet GP-15

I had similar needs to you years ago, and purchased a Comet GP-15. Mounted side by side with a large discone, it beat the pants of said discone on vhf, uhf, and low band. It's certainly not cheap, but it is very well made. As a bonus, it also does a great job on VHF-airband. Definately minimal on 800 though.

So as a once size fits all, if 800 is to be compromised, Gp-15 is my pick. The one caveat is, that it has real gain on three bands, and certainly will overload a poor quality receiver (e.g. pro-2067 on vhf-hi) in an area of strong signals. So you need a quality receiver to use with it, unless you live in the sticks.

Comet GP 15 Tri band (144/440/52 mhz) vertical ant Product Reviews

73

KB5UDF

 

[jvanderplaat151]

more help

Does anyone have one of these recommended antennas for Multi band. I am only able to mount one antenna on my roof. Has anyone else had good or bad luck with these antennas. I am looking to buy one of these but hoping that more than just one person is using it in the forum. I was sold on the Austin Ferret but if it is not going to perform better then my expensive discone

Austin ferrets

DPD omni-x

Comet GP-15

 

[prcguy]

I have a bunch of really good commercial single band antennas, several 4-bay dipole arrays for VHF hi, 8-bay dipole array for UHF, a military 4-bay array of some sort for 225-400, dedicated VHF air base antennas, 10dB omni for 800/900, 30-90MHz broad band military ground plane, you name it. With all that I find a good Discone is just fine for most monitoring purposes. I also find that height can be more beneficial and cheaper than antenna gain, a Discone at the top of my tower picks up some stuff better than a 6dBD gain antenna 20ft lower.

The KRECO Discones are really nice and the older aluminum Icom's were well made but the newer ones seem way too pricey for what you get. For the price the Diamond DJ-130 is hard to beat.
prcguy