800 MHz cell antenna outperforming VHF antenna

[GTR8000]

Okay, for accuracy's sake, I'm not the one who said you might be imagining things, lol. Don't take that one out on me, please.

OOPS!! My sincerest apologies, sometimes my eyes get crossed reading all the ham callsigns as usernames and keeping track!

As for all the connexions being okay, how do you know? Did you run a bench test on the base load to see if it was all intact and not shorted? Antenna loads die. It's a well known fact. It just happens. Sometimes it happens before you even install the antenna. That's why I mentioned switching it out with another identical antenna, not a completely different model antenna. Just like cars, some antennas come from the factory bad. Been there and got the t-shirt. And many of the times that people decide an antenna sucks, it was a problem with that specific antenna, not the entire model line.

No I did not bench test the base load. You might be right, it could be a lemon (it's less than 4 months old). I was just going on the fact that it still DOES receive well, just not as well as the little 800 guy. I figured (perhaps wrongly) that if I was still able to receive stations 50-100 miles away with it, then it was in sound mechanical shape.

What's wrong with yours? I dunno. I've never used it or any like it. I just don't want you walking away with an incorrect assumption before considering all the possibilities. And since you posted this here to begin with, I assumed you wanted to discuss it.

I DO like to discuss it, I was just rubbed the wrong way by that other fella's "imagining things" comment, which put me on defense.

Since the 5/8 antenna didn't cost me too much, what I'm going to do is cut the whip down to 41" so it's tuned to the 162 MHz band, and do another comparison using the NOAA frequencies. If I feel it's still underperforming, I think I will look at replacing it with something else.

 

[af5rn]

Yeah, I didn't want you thinking I was bashing your install or anything. I guess "connexions" was not the right word to use, because I meant the internal electrical connexions of the antenna itself, not your coax and install connexions. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

I bought a brand new Antenna Specialist UHF antenna once and stuck it on a mag mount on my vehicle. It was almost completely deaf. I got better reception off of my AM/FM car antenna, so I KNEW something was wrong, lol! Borrowed a friend's Maxrad UHF and stuck it on the same mag mount and it received awesome. Took the AS back to the radio shop and they swapped it out for another identical antenna and it worked fine. Lemon is a good word for what I was talking about, because that's exactly what they called it. Some just are. We definitely have to consider that possibility before we stress out over what we may have done wrong in the install, or to just write it off to the entire line sucking.

 

[GTR8000]

I'm definitely going to cut it down to tune to NOAA, and see what happens from that point on. If it still sounds like a dud or lemon, I'll pony up the $15 for a new one lol.

 

[ridgescan]

When I saw how awsome this type antenna delivered the whole scanner in my truck I wanted the whole forum to get one and just try it! Rob af5rn was the only one who was right decent to mirror back my contentment and exitment with the discovery. I believe that's what this thread by res6cue is all about. I believe that's what this forum is all about. I get a little confused about how you guys who come onto a guy's thread, read it and then proceed to crap all over him for expressing a discovery in radiocomm. view that as such a drain on your vast wisdom of all things scanner and such a pain in the ass to have to have read such rubbish. GET OVER YOURSELVES, lighten up, and enjoy each other here man! As i said before, this all IMO-and I'm venting a little because you guys who are pulling stuff like this just to "kick the dog" have a lot to offer somebody. WTF?

 

[KC0QNB]

Things must have changed the the physics of radio waves in the last few years as I recall a "precisely tuned" antenna wasn't required for receiving anything,
I had a radioshack vhf/uhf that might resonate at about 146 mHz it I needed it to, yet it still received a noaa weather radio station about 100 miles away just about perfect, with full quieting.
Now in its place is a A/S aircraft base station antenna, tuned for about 122 mHz I would guess, still receives the NWR station superbly.
I get the feeling some people on this forum were told that you needed a particular antenna tuned for a particular band for it to work, I don't think that is exactly the case.

 

[prcguy]

I like to recommend this link during discussions like this:
http://www.northwestradio.net/interceptnw/antennas.htm
This guy did some comprehensive testing of many NMO mount commercial and scanner antennas and the Larsen NMO800 had very good scores for general VHF and UHF use.
prcguy

 

[GTR8000]

Ahhh...I had forgotten about that page, thanks for posting the link prcguy!

 

[KC0QNB]

Let me throw this in here, Maxrad, Antennex, and Larsen probably make a wide-band version of their vhf antennas is there an advantage going with a wide-band variety over a "narrow band" version, just curious.

 

[ridgescan]

I like to recommend this link during discussions like this:
http://www.northwestradio.net/interceptnw/antennas.htm
This guy did some comprehensive testing of many NMO mount commercial and scanner antennas and the Larsen NMO800 had very good scores for general VHF and UHF use.
prcguy

Nice link-

 

[af5rn]

This guy did some comprehensive testing of many NMO mount commercial and scanner antennas and the Larsen NMO800 had very good scores for general VHF and UHF use.

Interestingly, the NMO800 is a 24 inch centre coil loaded whip, which is exactly what the Rat Shack glass-mount antenna is. I know we all poo-poo glass-mounts around here, and with good reason. But if you absolutely have to go with a glass-mount, that design is a pretty good one all the way across the spectrum. Friends of mine have used it side by side with the Rat Shack mag-mount and gotten better results with the glass-mount. So yeah, as that comparison page shows, there are few things that can be taken for granted in the antenna world.

As far as I can see, there are only two hard and fast rules:

1. There is no substitute for ground plane.
2. There is no substitute for height.

Beyond that, whatever works best for you is what you should use, regardless of what any published numbers say.

 

[GTR8000]

You know what though? This is definitely part of what makes this so fun, the experimentation and figuring out what works best for your situation. Of course it can also be a bit frustrating, but all in all it's fun.

 

[SAR923]

When we used to have A/S low band loaded antennas, the base load would fail occasionally for no apparent reason but it didn't fail in ways that made sense. For example, we might not be able to hit the nearest rpeater but we could bring up one 20 miles away. That's why I'm suspecting some problem with the base load on your Antennex 5/8 wave antenna. Sorry, I skipped right over that detail on your first post. I certainly can't explain why a 1/4 wave VHF antenna would be outperformed on NOAA frequencies by a purported cell phone antenna. It may be that it's just resonant at certain multiples of frequencies and one happens to be around 162 MHz. I guess my question at this point is the design of the cell phone antenna. Maybe it really was never a very good cell phone antenna but soemthing in the design makes it resonant over a wide range of frequencies. Certainly a very odd mystery.