Altelix 890-960MHz Thoughts?

[JoshuaHufford]

890-960 MHz 11 dBi High-Quality 900MHz Omni Antenna

890-960 MHz 11 dBi High-Quality 900MHz Omni Antenna

altelix.com

I'm currently using a Comet KP-20 for ATCS (railroad control signal) reception. Recently Union Pacific upgrade their system in this area to a much higher baud rate and because of this a much higher S/N ratio is required to decode the needed signals. Decoding that was rock solid before now has quite a few errors.

In another post by prcguy he posted a sweep of a KP-20 with less than great performance. I'm receiving signals from 896-953MHz, and the Comet only claims performance from 900-930MHz.

Just curious if anyone has tried this antenna or one by this company?

If you want to see the sweep of the KP-20 here is the post.

800 antenna to supplement a Discone

A lot of people are looking for the Holy Grail of antennas to cover everything but it hasn't been found yet. I am a big fan of the Discone for VHF/UHF over the VHF air band through 512MHz where the common size scanner types do very well. Above that range their pattern shifts upward and they...

forums.radioreference.com

 

[alabamarailfan]

Hey Joshua,
Might not be an issue to you if you only have one antenna or plenty of tower but I noticed the Altelix is about 4 times heavier than the KP-20 at over 10 lbs. (2.25 lbs. for the KP-20). I am working on mounting two omni-directional antennas (one dual band VHF/UHF and a 900 MHz) so for me, the weight might be an issue. It would be nice if that value was like a shipping weight. Wonder if it would be worth contacting them to verify the weight. The weight listed for my dual band is 6 lbs shipping weight so I expect the antenna to only be about 3 - 4 lbs.

Whoever gets one, I hope you guys post back on its performance! I am looking forward to hear about it. If the weight was little less, I might consider getting on myself. I would use the 900 MHz antenna for both ATCS and general scanning/SDR hobbies so the wider bandwidth would be a plus!

Let us know what you find out!

 

[Floridarailfanning]

I've used their smaller 6dbi antenna for BCP decoding and it does work well though I haven't tried any test equipment on it.

The dimensions they list show it being over 8ft long which means it could be a pain to ship. If I recall they used FedEx Ground last time I ordered from them.

 

[JoshuaHufford]

I did send an email asking for a shipping quote because what was listed on their website for my address was $120 for the 11dib model and $24 for the 8.5dbi model. If $120 is accurate I'm not sure I'll be trying one any time soon.

 

[JoshuaHufford]

Well because of the length of the antenna the $120 shipping charge is accurate, so unless I can figure out a way to get it from Boca Raton FL for a lot less I don't think I'll be trying out this antenna any time soon unless I have some assurance that performance would be significantly better than a KP-20. The shipping for the 8.5dbi model is only $24 but again I don't know how much of an improvement over the KP-20 it would be.

 

[JoshuaHufford]

Hey Joshua,
Might not be an issue to you if you only have one antenna or plenty of tower but I noticed the Altelix is about 4 times heavier than the KP-20 at over 10 lbs. (2.25 lbs. for the KP-20). I am working on mounting two omni-directional antennas (one dual band VHF/UHF and a 900 MHz) so for me, the weight might be an issue. It would be nice if that value was like a shipping weight. Wonder if it would be worth contacting them to verify the weight. The weight listed for my dual band is 6 lbs shipping weight so I expect the antenna to only be about 3 - 4 lbs.

Whoever gets one, I hope you guys post back on its performance! I am looking forward to hear about it. If the weight was little less, I might consider getting on myself. I would use the 900 MHz antenna for both ATCS and general scanning/SDR hobbies so the wider bandwidth would be a plus!

Let us know what you find out!

Forgot to reply to your thread. I would guess that is shipping weight but I don't know for sure, send them an email, they were very quite to respond to mine. If it is accurate it wouldn't be a problem for my mounting as it would be a short mast at the peak of a building drilled directly into the frame supporting the roof.