Thinking of Upgrades

[737mech]

I'm going to buy a DPD log periodic and was thinking of mounting it to a rotator. I live in Las Vegas and need to scan north for the Nellis ranges UHF Mil air and VHF air stuff. At the same time I'd like to get whatever else I can on every other band for the scanners (Police.Fire Ems, Highway patrol). My question is what would you do? Is this a good idea? Most of the people I ask about DPD antennas say they are great. I'm fishing for good intel on the DPD antennas from customers that bought them. It seems the LP is a great antenna across the full spectrum bands for a scanner however directional (Thus rotator idea) so has anyone tried one out in a city?

 

[prcguy]

The extra gain of the log antenna should bring in ground communications at Nellis a little better but for aircraft at altitude it may have less benefit.

I'm surrounded by mountains in some directions similar to what you would be looking over to reach the distant Nellis ranges. I compared a Yagi cut for the VHF aircraft band (about 11dBd gain) to a Discone and there was very little difference looking over the mountains, all aircraft faded out at the same distance. The same Yagi looking over the water to aircraft heading to Hawaii worked great. It also picked up ground comms better at extreme range

I have a few log periodic antennas (from KMA) and use them very infrequently because of the need to rotate. I do however sleep better at night just knowing the log antennas are there.
prcguy

 

[fineshot1]

I'm going to buy a DPD log periodic and was thinking of mounting it to a rotator. I live in Las Vegas and need to scan north for the Nellis ranges UHF Mil air and VHF air stuff. At the same time I'd like to get whatever else I can on every other band for the scanners (Police.Fire Ems, Highway patrol). My question is what would you do? Is this a good idea? Most of the people I ask about DPD antennas say they are great. I'm fishing for good intel on the DPD antennas from customers that bought them. It seems the LP is a great antenna across the full spectrum bands for a scanner however directional (Thus rotator idea) so has anyone tried one out in a city?

I do not have a DPD LP antenna but it sure sounds like your on the right track as the LP antennas
are about the best there is for directional multiband antennas and the rotor with one of these is
the only practical way to go since its directional. If I had the space and $ to do so I certainly would.

 

[zguy1243]

What antenna are you using now?

I'm going to buy a DPD log periodic and was thinking of mounting it to a rotator. I live in Las Vegas and need to scan north for the Nellis ranges UHF Mil air and VHF air stuff. At the same time I'd like to get whatever else I can on every other band for the scanners (Police.Fire Ems, Highway patrol). My question is what would you do? Is this a good idea? Most of the people I ask about DPD antennas say they are great. I'm fishing for good intel on the DPD antennas from customers that bought them. It seems the LP is a great antenna across the full spectrum bands for a scanner however directional (Thus rotator idea) so has anyone tried one out in a city?

 

[737mech]

My current antenna

What antenna are you using now?

I'm using an antenna from an F-16 and a RS mag mount. The F-16 blade antenna works ok on vhf airband but not awesome, it works great on uhf milair. The RS is for my trunked 800 and vhf airband but it is not getting the job done. Also I'm using rg-6 quad shield from home depot about 70 feet long.