JethrowJohnson
I love P25
Hi everybody, I was wondering if there's a specific visual difference between an antenna for a mobile analog conventional UHF radio and one for a mobile P25 trunking 700 MHz radio? I had thought that the longer thinner ones were for UHF and the tiny ones that look like oversized pencil erasers were for P25. My police department uses UHF, (although that's expected to change sometime soon) and their cars have the longer antennas, and so does the FD, but at least 2 out of the 4 Medic units they have, have MARCS radios used for patient transports to MMH or Selby. But I've noticed that these Medic units have three long antennas, which I figure one is for their own UHF channels, another for the hospitals' VHF channels, and another for the hospitals' MARCS channels. They don't have any short antennas. My sheriff's office is on MARCS and I noticed that their 2015 and newer units have short antennas, but that there older ones have long antennas. So does it matter which antenna is used for a particular band or are they different for other reasons? And when my PD starts to switch to MARCS soon, will a short antenna on their cars mean that that one has a MARCS radio, or isn't that a way to be able to tell if it is or not?