My VHF sucks. My remote monitoring station is located 8.85 miles from Sierra Madre on the same site that the Forest Service has one of their repeaters. It is ideal to be out and away from the mountains one wants to listen to. But as I said the signal dropped from 6 bars down to 4 even though I have the antenna side mounted and aimed right at Sierra Madre. On UHF is Irwindale off to my right about 15 degrees. They are 5 miles away and are only a S2-3 but from my main location at 6,400 feet in the mountains 2 hours east of Los Angeles I can hear Irwindale full quieting. I can hear Long Beach and the Grand Prix full quieting. Not with the ST-2. I can hear South Bay Regional Public Safety that I cannot hear with the ST-2.
I've heard of vendors strongly recommending 20dB wide band preamps for Ferrets, discones and ST-2's and this is just wrong. A scanner does not have the ability to fight off strong front-end overload and all of a sudden its bleep, bleep, blaaa. The only solution then is to hit the 20dB attenuator on the channel and that is a waste of an outdoor antenna and an expensive $300 preamp.
I have learned many tricks that I am happy to share. In this case the ST-2 may be saved by going to MCM Electronics and buying a CATV preamp that comes AFTER a PAR Electronics intermod filter for VHF and one for UHF. This will knock down pager noise at least 35dB and I've proved it in practice and by watching on a spectrum analyzer. I live 1.2 miles from Heaps Peak at 6,425 feet.
There is an extremely powerful VHF paging transmitter there that wipes out the front-end on even my commercial radios. With just a PAR filter I can erase that.
CATV Preamp:
MCM Electronics - Search Results for catv preamp
Inline CATV Preamp:
In-Line 11dB Signal Amplifier | 33-917 (33917) | Distributed By MCM
PAR Filters:
PAR Electronics | Filters for the commercial 2 way market, MATV, FM broadcast, laboratory, marine industry, amateur radio, scanner and short wave listening enthusiasts
This is my favorite because at 11dB it is just strong enough to overcome cable loss at 800MHz. It mounts at the antenna using the appropriate adapter. The ST-2 needs no F adapter at this point. The same precaution of placing a PAR filter in front of it is critical. One has to knock down the crap before amplifying. Used with the ST-2 I think you're UHF will be restored. If you aren't in a large metro area you can try it without the PAR filters.
PAR Electronics | Filters for the commercial 2 way market, MATV, FM broadcast, laboratory, marine industry, amateur radio, scanner and short wave listening enthusiasts. Dale is a nice man and will help you.
If need be you may purchase a bunch of 3, 6, 12 and 12dB F connector or BNC connector attenuators or the inpout to the scanner. The way I use them is to look at the baseline RF level on the scanner. 2 bars? Use a 3dB or 6dB attenuator until it is 0 bars. This is your baseline.
I am not going to dump these ST-2's on eBay just yet. As for the Ferrets at almost $400 to get delivered it is an excellent antenna for UHF mil-air up to 500MHz. All of the other bands suck. Using the above techniques will bring life to an antenna that like a ST-2 is a compromise to begin with.
