2 antennas instead of 1

[joetnymedic]

question:
I have 2 different radio shack antennas I monitor with. 1 is the 20-176 the other is the next one up the line (forgot product number). Anyway's my question is, since I only monitor-I do not transmit. Can I hook up an adapter that would join both antennas together and then hook both of them together to my scanner? and would this help or hurt my reception? This is just an idea i've been tossing around for a few days.

Joe

 

[N_Jay]

question:
I have 2 different radio shack antennas I monitor with. 1 is the 20-176 the other is the next one up the line (forgot product number). Anyway's my question is, since I only monitor-I do not transmit. Can I hook up an adapter that would join both antennas together and then hook both of them together to my scanner? and would this help or hurt my reception? This is just an idea i've been tossing around for a few days.

Joe

Two antennas connected together will impact each other.

If the antennas are random (not chosen specifically to work together) , then the results will be random.

 

[joetnymedic]

so basically if i hook them together, they'll either cancel each other out or i'll have poorer reception?

 

[Al42]

Or you'll have better reception. Or you won't see any difference.

And the results will vary not only by band, but by individual transmitter, since the direction and reflection paths are different for different transmitters.

IOW, as N_Jay said, hardly distinguishable from totally random. Since there are many more possibilities for worse reception than there are for better reception, you'll probably be disappointed with the results. But, unless you cut cables, you can't hurt anything by trying.

 

[kb2vxa]

Hi Joey and all,

What you'll end up with is a directional phased array. That's a bit of a mouthful but "directional" is the key word here. With random phasing (randomly chosen coax lengths and random spacing) you'll get random directional results depending on frequency, totally unpredictable without accurate scientific calculations.

I must disagree with Al on one little point, you can >hurt everything< by trying. Without any scientific knowledge of what you're doing you'll be trying to catch a black cat in a coal mine with the lights out. You'll be cutting your coax to ribbons and moving antennas to and fro wondering what the hell is going on, nothing works as expected but the chaos and confusion.

When dealing with the time-space continuum you must keep the Uncertanty Principle in mind. It states that if you know where you are you don't know when you are and conversely if you know when you are you don't know where you are. The only thing certain about it is entrophy, the process by which order degenerates into chaos and releases energy. Now will someone look in the box and see if Schroendinger's cat is still alive? I never was too good at statistical improbability... Pixel, where did you go this time? Pixel! That darned cat!

(No, I'm not a nut case, Heinlein fans will get the joke.)

 

[Al42]

I must disagree with Al on one little point, you can >hurt everything< by trying. Without any scientific knowledge of what you're doing you'll be trying to catch a black cat in a coal mine with the lights out. You'll be cutting your coax to ribbons

I said, "unless you cut cables".

Now will someone look in the box and see if Schroendinger's cat is still alive? I never was too good at statistical improbability... Pixel, where did you go this time? Pixel! That darned cat!

(No, I'm not a nut case, Heinlein fans will get the joke.)

I wonder - did (does? will?) Pixel belong(s?) to Schroendinger? And are you Lazarus?

 

[joetnymedic]

i actually got another idea that may work. How about one of the cable splitters in order to run the antennas to 2 seperate scanners? I want to say I saw similiar on scancapecods setup. At least I'll get good distance out of all my scanners on the desk.

Joe

 

[Al42]

i actually got another idea that may work. How about one of the cable splitters in order to run the antennas to 2 seperate scanners?

Try it. I doubt you'll notice any difference whether you use a splitter or a T-connector. (Or if you just splice the 2 cables together, which I definitely don't suggest.)