Good Scanner Antenna?

[btlacer]

I am looking at buying myself a new scanner antenna to run two scanners off of. The antenna's that I am looking at are the MFJ-1868 and Radio Shack 20-043. I want a antenna that receives air band and 800 well. The antenna's look about the same as I can tell from the pictures. Does anyone have any info on these? which would you prefer? Thanks for the insight...

 

[FLRAILMAN]

Good scanner antenna

I'm not into discones but this may help you decide, I'm quite sure in time you will get replies from RR members who have owned these & will share their experiences with you, choose wisely:

MFJ:

MFJ Enterprises Inc.

MFJ-1868 25-1300 MHz Discone Antenna w/ Coaxial Cable & Mounting Product Reviews

Radio Shack:

RadioShack® Outdoor Scanner/Ham Discone Antenna - RadioShack.com

Radio Shack Discone Product Reviews

FLRAILMAN

 

[jbantennaman]

Depending on which frequencies you wish to receive, one of the best scanner antenna's would be nothing more then just a plain old television antenna. Instead of mounting it horizontally, you mount it vertically and then you put it on a mast pipe either in the direction you wish to receive, or you can use a antenna rotor and turn it in the direction you wish to receive.

A channel Master CM 3671 would work wonders for what you are trying to do.

If all you wanted was the UHF bands, you could use a Channel Master 4228..

Rule of thumb is - any antenna that can receive can also be used for transmit.

A antenna does not have to be physically marketed as a scanner antenna to work.

 

[jbantennaman]

MFJ-1868 looks to be a good antenna, but I would replace the coax with a communications grade coax such as the Belden 1829 AC Series 6 and pay close attention to the corrosion protection inside of the connectors and I would also electrical tape all connections to ensure that you could keep as much mositure out of the connectors.

Wire physically does not ever wear out as long as you use a solid copper wire. The problems I encounter most is moisture inside of the wire and jacket deterioriation.

For runs of more then 100', you could add a pre amplifier such as a channel master cm 7777..

The loss in the wire of the UHF band - usually looses half or more of the signal in the wire between the antenna and the receiver.

I would also put a A/B switch on the coax and only run one scanner at a time.

You will find that two scanners running, hooked to the same antenna will cause interference.

Basically they will cancel each other out.

 

[iMONITOR]

I am looking at buying myself a new scanner antenna to run two scanners off of. The antenna's that I am looking at are the MFJ-1868 and Radio Shack 20-043. I want a antenna that receives air band and 800 well.

Both of those antennas would not be ideal choices for the 800MHz band.

 

[hoser147]

You can find plenty of info on various antenna's and more in the Wiki Category:Antennas - The RadioReference Wiki . Also if you want to find previous threads on different antenna's use the search function in the middle dark blue bar. Many of us use multi scanners on the same antenna there is also lots of info in both places on this. Good Luck

 

[btlacer]

Thanks for the info guys, but has anyone ever used any of these antennas? I would like to know how well it worked and how well it did on 800mhz. Thanks alot..

 

[ksphotoguy]

I use the Radio Shack discone antenna and it does a good job for me on the 800 band as well as just general scanning thru the entire frequency range of my scanner.