Need Suggestion on outside Antenna

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NFR85

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I'm still in the reviewing mode. Here is what I want to do and my house setup
( I'm a newbie so I don't a ton on these things that's why I came here.)

I have a BCD996XT. I want to be able to pickup ranges from 30-800 MHz.

My house is 2 stories. And will be placed on the roof. I live in New England so I encounter snow/ice.

Here are my questions.

1). What was your price to have to your antenna grounded? Or a rough estimate on what I'm looking at.

2). I think this is a silly question, But is there anything that can be used to prevent snow/ice build up?

3.) Would this antenna work for what I need? Classic VHF UHF Base Station Antenna 25MHz

Or would you recommend something else. My budget is under $400

Thank you in advanced.
 

mass-man

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I would think about one of these...been a GREAT antenna for me...
DPD Productions - Base & Mobile Antennas for Radio Scanners: VHF, UHF, NOAA, Low-Band, 700 MHz, Police, Fire, Public Safety
WHY? This design would be less effected by snow and ice! It's strong and durable.

Is yours a two story house with an attic? If there is no aluminum barrier shield or an attic full of vents of some kind try it in the attic....not quite as up in the air, but then you would have no problem with grounding, as well as ice/snow!

my $.02
 

NFR85

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I would think about one of these...been a GREAT antenna for me...
DPD Productions - Base & Mobile Antennas for Radio Scanners: VHF, UHF, NOAA, Low-Band, 700 MHz, Police, Fire, Public Safety
WHY? This design would be less effected by snow and ice! It's strong and durable.

Is yours a two story house with an attic? If there is no aluminum barrier shield or an attic full of vents of some kind try it in the attic....not quite as up in the air, but then you would have no problem with grounding, as well as ice/snow!

my $.02

I do have vinyl siding. And there is an attic but not a full one.
 

Robertolson

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All (All band) Scanner antenna's really don't cover (100%) of The band very good

ST2 .no longer available, Real Good, no so good on 800 band.... heck only $39 bucks ...Ski rocketed used priced $200 higher

Dave's DPD Production's OmniX...... real good... except...... low Band

the Discone's (you will get mix reviews)

I put my money on you getting Two Antenna's with Good LMR 400 Coax (No Generic want to be LMR 400 Import Coax)
 
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mass-man

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+1 to Robertolson's comments. No antenna will give you great coverage 30-1300 mhz! Physically not possible...I would go with the Omni-X and see how it works on the lower freq for you...YES feed it with good quality LMR-400 so you loose less at the 700-900 mhz freq.

Vinyl siding shouldn't hurt you with an indoor install. Give it a go and mount the antenna at the very apex of the attic...as far away as possible from any metal objects. Use it that way for a bit, determining how well it helps you receive the signals you want to hear. If you aren't satisfied, then go for the roof mount.
 

NFR85

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+1 to Robertolson's comments. No antenna will give you great coverage 30-1300 mhz! Physically not possible...I would go with the Omni-X and see how it works on the lower freq for you...YES feed it with good quality LMR-400 so you loose less at the 700-900 mhz freq.

Vinyl siding shouldn't hurt you with an indoor install. Give it a go and mount the antenna at the very apex of the attic...as far away as possible from any metal objects. Use it that way for a bit, determining how well it helps you receive the signals you want to hear. If you aren't satisfied, then go for the roof mount.

I really like it but it says its tuned to 118-137, 148-175 & 225-900 MHz. So if I want to listen to a town in the 30 MHz it would not work. Like an example Brookline NH uses freq 33.64000 so that antenna would not pick it up correct?
 

Robertolson

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I just got a J - pole Antenna tuned for The Railroad Band on Ebay $35 bucks, Added some LMR 400 coax mounted on my single story House.

To my surprise, it also does expressly well on The 800 band ?????? I'M picking up LA City Fire 60-70 miles away, crystal clear ,
O.C Fire Type 2 trunk system Crystal Clear Reception very little static ????? The best 800 Band coverage I ever experienced.

On a $35 Antenna, I was only expecting the Railroad Band ? ... I'M confused and I have been doing this for 40 Years?

Scanner Antenna's are funny, but just one will not (do it all very good.)
 
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Weaksignal

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NFR85;2636306 Would this antenna work for what I need? [url=http://www.mpantenna.com/product/base-station-scanner-antenna-uhf-vhf-ham-radio/ said:
Classic VHF UHF Base Station Antenna 25MHz[/url]
Thank you in advanced.

What's nice about the MP Classic Base, is that it does receive well from 25 to 1300 MHz. If you ever do decide and obtain your ham license, it will allow up to 200 watts on 144, 222, and 432 MHz ham bands... It works very well at my location.
 

mass-man

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It's not that it won't work, it just won't work as well as an antenna built expressly for the 30-50 mhz band. Depending on how far away the town is, it might. It's hard to say in advance....an old metal coat hanger might work, it might not. This is not exact science, especially when only receiving!

I would check with Dave at DPD, but I suspect if you order the antenna and it does not do what you want it to, after a good install and very good coax, you might be able to return it and try something else....just an idea.

I honestly don't think the MP2, while advertised to receive 30-50 is going to work very well....it's not much bigger than the Omni-X. Some of this magical equation is about capture area...the antenna needs to have an element almost 5.5 ft tall to even begin to be effective between 30-50 mhz!

As stated earlier, most scanner antennas are a compromise somewhere in the intended range...a longer antenna would be less effective on 800mhz....a shorter one on 30-50mhz! Two antennas would be a good install, but then you double the coax expense and mounting problems. As well you shouldn't combine them both into a single receiver....you would need an antenna switch and switch to the 30-50mhz antenna when you need it. Not terribly convenient...
 

mass-man

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Then I stand corrected....if the MP2 is receiving 30-50mhz well for Weaksignal, then give it a try!!!!!
 

n5ims

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First off, check to see what you really want to hear in your area. Chances are you can reduce that huge 30 - 800 MHz range down to something a bit more manageable. The narrower the range, the better the antenna you can get. If you really need that wide of a range, you'll be stuck with a zero gain discone that has the low-band whip added. That will get you fairly poor performance over the entire range. - MFJ Enterprises Inc.

If you can eliminate the VHF-Low band range (30 - 100 MHz range or so) you can ditch that low-band whip and cut your cost quite a bit. Still zero gain, but lower cost and a bit less noticeable. - MFJ Enterprises Inc.

Eliminate both VHF-Low and the 800 MHz band and you can get some real gain that can boost your signal quite a bit by using a band-tuned antenna. While these often are designed for ham use on the 144 and 440 MHz ranges, they cover the nearby scanning frequencies quite well. You can find Omni-directional ones with up to 9 dB gain (every 3 dB is double) but this one isn't that expensive at 3 dB. - MFJ Enterprises Inc.

Be aware that the listed ranges may or may not cover what you want quite like you expect. Often an antenna specification only lists what they've designed and tested it for and it may work just fine for you on other band(s). The reverse is also true. They may list an antenna will "also work on" a wide range of frequencies. Just be aware that "work on" and "work WELL on" may be two totally different things. Almost any antenna will "work on" any frequency. If the signal strength is strong any antenna will work just fine. If you're in a fringe area (or have other issues like very strong stations close by that may overload your receiver), the antenna choice (and perhaps filters to reduce those strong signals) is critical and what works very well for me may not work at all for you.

Also, use the best (read lowest loss for the highest desired frequency you monitor) coax you can. Shorter runs allow for poorer coax, but the cost is lower since the run is shorter so you may want good coax even for a short run. Anything over 50' should use good coax. RG-6 Quad Shield at the least (and at the least cost) for a receive-only solution but LMR-400 for the 800 MHz bands or runs over 100' is better. Longer runs will require commercial grade coax like LDF4-50A, which isn't cheap per foot and the connectors are also quite high.
 
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Robertolson

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You can put a All Band Mobile Magnetic Mount Antenna, like a Radio Shack or Austin, outside on a cookie sheet & connect to some RG8X....... I was pulling in the CHP (Low Band) 70 miles away.

You can do this for under $60 Bucks
 

NFR85

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First off, check to see what you really want to hear in your area. Chances are you can reduce that huge 30 - 800 MHz range down to something a bit more manageable. The narrower the range, the better the antenna you can get. If you really need that wide of a range, you'll be stuck with a zero gain discone that has the low-band whip added. That will get you fairly poor performance over the entire range. - MFJ Enterprises Inc.

If you can eliminate the VHF-Low band range (30 - 100 MHz range or so) you can ditch that low-band whip and cut your cost quite a bit. Still zero gain, but lower cost and a bit less noticeable. - MFJ Enterprises Inc.

Eliminate both VHF-Low and the 800 MHz band and you can get some real gain that can boost your signal quite a bit by using a band-tuned antenna. While these often are designed for ham use on the 144 and 440 MHz ranges, they cover the nearby scanning frequencies quite well. You can find Omni-directional ones with up to 9 dB gain (every 3 dB is double) but this one isn't that expensive at 3 dB. - MFJ Enterprises Inc.

Be aware that the listed ranges may or may not cover what you want quite like you expect. Often an antenna specification only lists what they've designed and tested it for and it may work just fine for you on other band(s). The reverse is also true. They may list an antenna will "also work on" a wide range of frequencies. Just be aware that "work on" and "work WELL on" may be two totally different things. Almost any antenna will "work on" any frequency. If the signal strength is strong any antenna will work just fine. If you're in a fringe area (or have other issues like very strong stations close by that may overload your receiver), the antenna choice (and perhaps filters to reduce those strong signals) is critical and what works very well for me may not work at all for you.

Also, use the best (read lowest loss for the highest desired frequency you monitor) coax you can. Shorter runs allow for poorer coax, but the cost is lower since the run is shorter so you may want good coax even for a short run. Anything over 50' should use good coax. RG-6 Quad Shield at the least (and at the least cost) for a receive-only solution but LMR-400 for the 800 MHz bands or runs over 100' is better. Longer runs will require commercial grade coax like LDF4-50A, which isn't cheap per foot and the connectors are also quite high.

Please check your private messages.
 

cmdrwill

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To my surprise, it also does expressly well on The 800 band ?????? I'M picking up LA City Fire 60-70 miles away, crystal clear ,
O.C Fire Type 2 trunk system Crystal Clear Reception very little static ????? The best 800 Band coverage I ever experienced.

On a $35 Antenna, I was only expecting the Railroad Band ? ... I'M confused and I have been doing this for 40 Years?

AND those systems are on 5000 foot mountains and less than 50 miles away....... what if you had a real antenna?
 

trp2525

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...I have a BCD996XT. I want to be able to pickup ranges from 30-800 MHz...

If VHF-Low (30-50 MHz) monitoring is really important to you in an all-band scanner antenna, some of the best antennas meeting that criteria were the Antenna Specialists MON/MONR series of antennas. Unfortunately they were discontinued back in 2005 but can still be found on eBay from time-to-time and also on Craigslist and at estate sales.

The MONR31, MON-58 and MON731 were all base-station ground plane models. They also made magnetic mount (MON-51,MONR51 and MON751), roof/deck mount (MONR33 and MON-53) and trunk-lip mount (MONR32, MON-52 and MON752) mobile versions. The MON7xx series were the last/latest models made from 2003 through 2005 and were based on the company's Mosaic series of commercial antennas.

Because the mobile versions were all NMO mounts, you could use a ground-plane conversion kit to convert any of the Antenna Specialists mobile antennas that you could locate into a base-station antenna. One of my favorite conversion kits is the Laird MBCN (formerly sold as the Antenex MBCN) which terminates in an N connector instead of the "standard" SO-239/PL-259 configuration. The N connector is better/lower loss especially at the higher frequencies. Here's a link to the Laird MBCN: http://www.theantennafarm.com/catalog/laird-technologies-mbcn-7531.html

Here's a link to some of the discontinued Antenna Specialists MON/MONR antennas that I mentioned at Universal Radio: Discontinuted Scanner Antennas

I have personally used the Antenna Specialists MON/MONR series of scanner antennas for 30+ years in both mobile and base-station applications and have been very impressed with the results. I presently have a MON731 (Antenna Specialists MON731 Base Scanner Antenna) on my roof and get excellent reception from VHF-Low all the way up through 800/900. FYI I am using approximately 50 feet of RG6 quad-shield coax as transmission line which terminates in compression-type F connectors on each end. I use an F-to-N adapter at the antenna end and an F-to-BNC adapter at the scanner end.
 

prcguy

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I see some good and some silly advice here. One thing for the OP to understand right out the gate is the specifications on most if not all scanner antennas is an outright lie. Yes they will all receive 25MHz to 1300MHz but so will a coat hanger to some extent. The MP Classic mentioned by the OP is a classic example of the big antenna lie.

I've owned and used just about every scanner antenna on the market. I buy them, test them and pack some away in the garage, give some away and others end up in the trash can. I've also got huge single band VHF/UHF/800 high gain commercial repeater antennas on my tower that I can combine together for probably the ultimate in reception, but I don't use it much if at all these days for scanning.

What I settled on for my scanners is a simple Discone. I have several, each feeding a different part of the house where I might need to monitor or temporarily transmit on several VHF/UHF bands.

The typical scanner Discone works very well from the VHF air band through about 500MHz and on 700/800/900MHz its a bit degraded due to the pattern shifting up above the horizon, but for many it provides adequate reception there. Unlike most any other antenna, the Discone will provide the same consistent performance from about 110MHz to 500MHz with no gaps, where other antennas may peak in gain at a few discrete frequencies, then they could be 10dB or more worse than a Discone in places like the VHF or UHF air band. For VHF low there is a whip on some Discones that enhances lo band a little but the whips are tuned around 50MHz.

So my recommendation for the OP is a known good brand of Discone, something like a Diamond DJ130 which is proven to be mechanically sound and should live through many seasons of snow and Ice in New England. I would also use the best coax I could afford with LMR400 being my first choice. If the coax run is very short like 30ft or less I would opt for something a little smaller like LMR240, which is much easier to deal with.

For grounding, if the OP can install his own antenna he can probably ground it. To meet the National Electrical Code you can get an inline arrester near the antenna and run #10 copper wire from that to the outside of the house electrical box up with up to about 30ft of wire. This would meet code but would not necessarily protect your radio from a direct lightning hit. Lightning protection is a complicated topic and you can't get the final word for your install from an Internet forum.
prcguy
 
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K5MPH

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I see some good and some silly advice here. One thing for the OP to understand right out the gate is the specifications on most if not all scanner antennas is an outright lie. Yes they will all receive 25MHz to 1300MHz but so will a coat hanger to some extent. The MP Classic mentioned by the OP is a classic example of the big antenna lie.

I've owned and used just about every scanner antenna on the market. I buy them, test them and pack some away in the garage, give some away and others end up in the trash can. I've also got huge single band VHF/UHF/800 high gain commercial repeater antennas on my tower that I can combine together for probably the ultimate in reception, but I don't use it much if at all these days for scanning.

What I settled on for my scanners is a simple Discone. I have several, each feeding a different part of the house where I might need to monitor or temporarily transmit on several VHF/UHF bands.

The typical scanner Discone works very well from the VHF air band through about 500MHz and on 700/800/900MHz its a bit degraded due to the pattern shifting up above the horizon, but for many it provides adequate reception there. Unlike most any other antenna, the Discone will provide the same consistent performance from about 110MHz to 500MHz with no gaps, where other antennas may peak in gain at a few discrete frequencies, then they could be 10dB or more worse than a Discone in places like the VHF or UHF air band. For VHF low there is a whip on some Discones that enhances lo band a little but the whips are tuned around 50MHz.

So my recommendation for the OP is a known good brand of Discone, something like a Diamond DJ130 which is proven to be mechanically sound and should live through many seasons of snow and Ice in New England. I would also use the best coax I could afford with LMR400 being my first choice. If the coax run is very short like 30ft or less I would opt for something a little smaller like LMR240, which is much easier to deal with.

For grounding, if the OP can install his own antenna he can probably ground it. To meet the National Electrical Code you can get an inline arrester near the antenna and run #10 copper wire from that to the outside of the house electrical box up with up to about 30ft of wire. This would meet code but would not necessarily protect your radio from a direct lightning hit. Lightning protection is a complicated topic and you can't get the final word for your install from an Internet forum.
prcguy
I agree with prcguy go with an Discone antenna they are very broad banded and will perform very well across the band you have interest in.....
 
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