Antenna ???HELP!!!

[gbeck41]

Looking for a good antenna for my BC246T, handheld and for vehicle. Would like to recieve 25 to 1300Mhz. So many choices, can anyone help?

 

[MacombMonitor]

There are no "good" antennas for hand-held scanners with that wide of a frequency range.

Typically you choose the antenna that is optimized for the most important band you're attempting to receive. The Radio Shack 800MHz rubber duck works very well in the 800MHz band, and fairly well in the 450MHz band, and not so good in the 150MHz band. Likewise, you could buy an antenna that is optimized for the 150MHz, but it would not work well in the 800MHz band.

If you still feel the need to cover that entire range of frequencies, then you will find it necessary to own two, or three antennas, and change them depending on the task at that time.

The antenna that came with your scanner is an attempt to cover all bases, but as you seem to have already discovered, it doesn't to it well, nor will any others you buy, and try.

 

[kf4lne]

Look on some of the amateur radio supplier websites and see if you can find a dual band (2 meter/70 centimeter) rubber duck replacement antenna. I use my kenwood rubber duck antenna with my portable scanner and it works great for VHF-HI, UHF and 800MHz. UHF antennas typically work well for 800MHz because a 1/4 wave UHF antenna is a half wave 800MHz antenna. If you can find a replacement antenna for one of the newer yaesu handheld radios you can probably use that for good all around coverage. Most of these new amateur radio handhelds make better scanners that scanners do since a good number of them come out of the box with receive coverage from way down in the shortwave bands to way up in the SHF bands.

 

[John_M]

This is a good choice for VHF and UHF handheld antenna. Not so good for 800mhz, for 800mhz the RS 800mhz antenna is hard to beat. http://www.rfparts.com/diamond/rh77ca.html

 

[rgchristy]

I own the 20-283 RS 800 MHz antenna, the GRE 30-0028 800MHz Adjustable Antenna, the Centurion CRNEXE806BNX 800MHz Half Wave Dipole Antenna - BNX Connector and the factory antenna for my Pro-96. I looked at the following reviews:

http://myweb.accessus.net/~090/antenna.html

http://www.strongsignals.net/access/content/antenna.html

I've found the Centurion to be the best with the RS 800 next.

My unscientific reception observations are:
800 MHz - slightly better than RS800
500 MHz - much better than RS800
150 MHz - much better than RS800
46 MHz - much better than RS800

I purchased the antenna from Waltel. The transaction was smooth and prompt, with great support from Jeff Walsh. I would definitely buy from him again.

Here's the link to the antenna:

http://shop.waltel.com/catalog/product_info.php/cPath/4_5/products_id/467

Hope this helps.

 

[Dave13]

Ham TX H/H as Scanner?

I have to sorta agree and disagree with KF4LNE on the use of a ultra Wide-Band H/H for scanning...
I use my Yaseu VX-2R a lot for scanning the local Ham frequencys, some local So and PD, and to monitor it's capabile frequencys occasionally.
The recieve circut of the tiny VX-2R is AMAZING in it's clarity and squelch. The broadband recieve capibilitys exceed all of my RS and Uniden Scanners. Recieve with a PRYME (SME) RD-8 antenna, is excellent!
However, the radio has one fatal flaw... it is NOT a Scanner, rather, it scans it's memory banks(the ones you enter in specific "search banks") top to bottom or visa-versa. It scanns the entire pre-programmed band the same way.
Contrary to a traditional Scanner, you may set the radio to stop on recieved signals, at pre-set timed stop periods but unless you MANUALLY halt it on a frequency, it then continues on its Memory scan timing (ie; 3, 5; or 10 second, intervils). It does not automatically stop and "hold" untill recption ceases on any specific frequency.
Granted this is a minor grievence, but you must stay on top of it and manually stop it, otherwise it works just great! Hell, I love my VX-2R!
A little point you might want to consider tho...

Dave13

 

[K5MAR]

Contrary to a traditional Scanner, you may set the radio to stop on recieved signals, at pre-set timed stop periods but unless you MANUALLY halt it on a frequency, it then continues on its Memory scan timing (ie; 3, 5; or 10 second, intervils). It does not automatically stop and "hold" untill recption ceases on any specific frequency.
Granted this is a minor grievence, but you must stay on top of it and manually stop it, otherwise it works just great! Hell, I love my VX-2R!
A little point you might want to consider tho...

Dave13

Dave, that is a setting that you can change, see page 47 of your manual: Setting The Scan Resume Technique. You want the BUSY option, which restarts the scan 2 seconds after the carrier drops.

You are right, however, the VX2R is a scanning transceiver, not a scanner. There are alot of things it doesn't do as well as my Pro-92 or Pro-43. However, neither one of those allows you to xmit on 2m and 70cm amateur radio freqs! My 2R has become my prime off-the-clock carry radio, with my Pro-92, ADI AT-600 and Moto GP300 handhelds for serious scanning and/or communications/work activity.

Back to antennas: I've found that the RS 800MHz antenna works well in my area, where 90% of the radio systems I monitor are repeater or trunked systems. For really needing to pull out the weak signals, then I switch to my dualband ham antennas, such as the Diamond RH519 (7 7/8" overall length), or the Comet BNC-24 (17 1/4" overall length). I also have the Pryme antenna that's about the same length as the BNC-24 and works equally well. Dave, for your VX2R, take a look at the Comet SMA-503. That's what I use and I love it!

Mark S.