Antenna question

[tbreaves]

I work for a newspaper in Concord (Cabarrus County). We're using a RadioShack Pro-106, and I just hooked up a TerraWave Solutions 806-960 MHz Yagi Antenna.

I have a couple of questions to determine whether I'm using the system correctly

1) I have the antenna pointed at the tower in the center of the county, represented here: WPGT418 (CONCORD, CITY OF) FCC Callsign Details

I don't know that much about the system, but it's called a simulcast. Can I get traffic from the whole county by pointing the antenna at any tower?

2) The antenna is currently inside my building attached to a coat rack. This is a temporary solution, but the boss is talking about putting it on top of the building. I've read about signal loss over cable distance. The distance between the scanner and the antenna will be 50 feet or more, whereas now it's about three feet. Is this a problem?

3) I have the antenna angled parallel to the ground. Should I angle it up, since the tower is 90 feet high?

 

[kd8x]

I also run a yagi antenna. The elements of the antenna should be oriented vertical....ie the boom is parallel with ground with elements pointing up and down.. A lot of yagis have a hole in the boom in order to shed water from the boom. Make sure boom is pointed down towards ground. If you are receiving well as your antenna is now then leave it alone...If you mount it outside and greater than 50 ft runs then do not use regular RG8 or RG58 cable that would be used for CB's as it has too much loss at 800mhz frequencies. RG6 or RMR 400 would be a good cable for the yagi....You will most likely get the whole county on any of the simulcast sites in the county so if you receive center city okay just leave yagi there....Hope this helps out....

 

[yardbird]

Hello!

Welcome to Radio Reference

To better answer your post I have always used a 3db gain antenna.

David

 

[WA0CBW]

In a simulcast system all sites have the same frequencies and have the same talk groups so pointing the antenna at any site will let you hear everything.
BB