I've been playing around with radios and scanners since the late 70s/early 80s. I've owned quite a few commercial amateur antennas (yagis, omnis, single and dual band) and have concocted a number of HF/VHF/UHF/900 Mhz antennas as experiments. During all of the time of having a 146 / 440 antenna, I never really had the opportunity or urge to compare them on receive to an omni scanner antenna designed for VHF / UHF operation.
From the perspective of a scanner listener (usually only relying upon an antenna for receive and not transmit), a lot of things change.
Advertised "gain" doesn't mean a whole lot if you are looking at a transmit antenna to use for receive-only
Why? Gain figures on antennas are usually transmit gain figures. It is entirely possible to have an antenna with some gain that doesn't have the required capture area to effectively achieve a significant increase in receive signal strength.
With the above said, and taking into consideration the old adage about opinions being akin to a-holes, I'm going to ask a question....
I've been thinking about purchasing a Diamond X200A dual-band antenna (146 / 440 Mhz). This is a colinear vertical. It's a nearly 8.5 foot tall antenna. If this antenna were "tuned" for 152 / 455 it would be "better", but it's not "tuned" for 152 / 455 and I wouldn' want it to be.
My question, for those with some antenna theory under their belt, is whether this antenna is going to be a good _receive_ antenna on 150-170 / 470 without any retuning. Since I don't currently intend on using it as a transmit antenna, I don't really have to worry about SWR/resonance from that perspective. But is a 146 / 440 Mhz antenna signficantly "detuned" on recieve for it to be perform well at 150-162 and 450-470?
Bottom line is that I want a single, quality, omnidirectional antenna of reasonable length and covering VHF and UHF that I can have up for a decade and never have to touch. I want it to perform better as as a recieve-only antenna than any well-known omnidirectional scanner antenna on the market, knowing that one day I might actually give a damn about 2m / 440 (being an amateur radio op) to actually hook a transceiver up to it.
So for those with an something more than opinion [such as some real world experience, technical knowledge], am I going to be amazed at the increased receive gain if I buy this antenna to replace my ST-2 and various other "scanner hobby" antennas that I"m currently using for VHF / UHF?
Your opinion?
Mike
From the perspective of a scanner listener (usually only relying upon an antenna for receive and not transmit), a lot of things change.
Advertised "gain" doesn't mean a whole lot if you are looking at a transmit antenna to use for receive-only
Why? Gain figures on antennas are usually transmit gain figures. It is entirely possible to have an antenna with some gain that doesn't have the required capture area to effectively achieve a significant increase in receive signal strength.
With the above said, and taking into consideration the old adage about opinions being akin to a-holes, I'm going to ask a question....
I've been thinking about purchasing a Diamond X200A dual-band antenna (146 / 440 Mhz). This is a colinear vertical. It's a nearly 8.5 foot tall antenna. If this antenna were "tuned" for 152 / 455 it would be "better", but it's not "tuned" for 152 / 455 and I wouldn' want it to be.
My question, for those with some antenna theory under their belt, is whether this antenna is going to be a good _receive_ antenna on 150-170 / 470 without any retuning. Since I don't currently intend on using it as a transmit antenna, I don't really have to worry about SWR/resonance from that perspective. But is a 146 / 440 Mhz antenna signficantly "detuned" on recieve for it to be perform well at 150-162 and 450-470?
Bottom line is that I want a single, quality, omnidirectional antenna of reasonable length and covering VHF and UHF that I can have up for a decade and never have to touch. I want it to perform better as as a recieve-only antenna than any well-known omnidirectional scanner antenna on the market, knowing that one day I might actually give a damn about 2m / 440 (being an amateur radio op) to actually hook a transceiver up to it.
So for those with an something more than opinion [such as some real world experience, technical knowledge], am I going to be amazed at the increased receive gain if I buy this antenna to replace my ST-2 and various other "scanner hobby" antennas that I"m currently using for VHF / UHF?
Your opinion?
Mike