Antenna Question - To discone or not

[tilt404]

I got a GRE PSR-800 recently and it works well with my Watson W-881 16" antenna for pulling in simplex frequencies more distant. Other things like VHF Fleetnet can be a bit weak due to my scanner sitting on my desk and fighting with other electronics around.

I often hook it to an outside antenna on my balcony about 100' up. Its a 5'5" tall MFJ-1522 dual band 144/440 antenna and works very well for me to clear up marine, opp simplex and other things in the VHF/UHF range. Its things in that range that come in a bit weak on my Watson due to so much RF being around my desk. The other local system here is P25 in the 800mhz range and isn't an issue. The MFJ-1522 is connected to the scanner with 30' of Times Microwave LMR-400 Flex coax. cable.

Soon I will be getting a Kenwood TMV-71A dual band ham radio transceiver though and it will be hooked to that MFJ full time. In the past I used a Diamond D-130J discone with scanners up here and they seem to perform well but the MFJ has more gain. It takes up less space also. I know the discone has a wider receive range but I'm really having a hard time deciding what to do. I'm wondering if I will have any advantage using the D-130J with my scanner over a second MFJ-1522.

The D-130J and MFJ-1522 are around the same price. I guess it comes down to what I need to listen to. The discone will help with the 25mhz-144mhz and 440-1200mhz ranges but I really don't listen to those areas much. The 800mhz trunk systems around here are close and I don't have a need for a outside antenna. So far I've been using the MFJ and helps a lot. It's been almost a year since I was using the D-130J outside so its hard to remember how well it worked for me here. I'm sorry if I just seem to be thinking out loud in the post. I guess I'm just wondering what other people think I should go with to help me decide.

 

[tilt404]

One thing I noticed today was marine frequencies not coming in so well on the MFJ, so maybe the discone would help with those.

 

[prcguy]

The MFJ will have more gain over the Discone within its narrow rated range but outside that the Discone can easily outperform it.
prcguy

 

[tilt404]

Thanks, I decided to order the diamond d130j from durham next month. While listening to marine today on the MFJ which is out of band it didn't do so well.

 

[kb2vxa]

I suggest you undecide and change your order to a coaxial (not coax) switch and a couple short jumpers to connect both scanner and ham rig. You won't be using them at the same time so wy waste money on an antenna and coax you don't need?

MFJ Enterprises Inc.

I have my doubts a discone with unity gain would outperform the ham antenna based on experience. Once upon a time I had a Diamond tri-band antenna that received well out of band (deaf on 800 though) and now stuck with a vertical wire VHF dipole in more or less the same location reception fell flat.

 

[prcguy]

But then he will have to put up with degraded antenna performance outside the ham bands when scanning.
prcguy

I suggest you undecide and change your order to a coaxial (not coax) switch and a couple short jumpers to connect both scanner and ham rig. You won't be using them at the same time so wy waste money on an antenna and coax you don't need?

MFJ Enterprises Inc.

 

[tilt404]

I will be using both at the same time though so will stick to my choice. I could always get a switch down the road for the MFJ to switch between the discone and it if i want some more gain on 2m/70cm. Used too many expensive switches before though so just trying to go direct this time.