I am brand new to scanners as of this week. I successfully got my Uniden BCD325P2 programmed and up running yesterday. While I'm learning all the ins and outs of this scanner, I'm curious if a longer antenna would be better. The six inch one that came with it seems totally fine, but every now and then things are either much quieter or broken up a bit. I won't be attaching anything to the roof. Maybe down the road, but I don't want to get ahead of myself.
Antenna question
- Thread starter Shinobi1
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Generally speaking, a lot depends on the frequencies that you will be monitoring. A number of folks listen to different bands, such as VHF High, UHF and 800. So they use wide band antennas.
Strangely enough if you are monitoring a simulcast system, having a better antenna could be detrimental to signal decoding. So what kind of system you monitor may be a factor.
Strangely enough if you are monitoring a simulcast system, having a better antenna could be detrimental to signal decoding. So what kind of system you monitor may be a factor.
Generally speaking, an outside gain antenna, mounted as high as practical, is the practice when attempting to improve signal strength. But first, program what you want and see what kind of reception success you have. There are limits to how far away you will hear a system so before you decide you need an outside, bigger, gain antenna, research if your expectations are reasonable with respect to distance. Go slow, learn a bit, enjoy a bit. If you get around to an outside mounted antenna, be sure it’s installed as per local building code.
Ubbe
Member
Maybe it would be suitable to start with a bigger indoor antenna, a magnetmount in the window or a good place in the room with a tripple band antenna. It could then also be used on a car roof.
/Ubbe
/Ubbe
Welcome to the hobby! Ultimately, the type of antenna you choose will be determined by how portable you want your handheld scanner to remain. However, nothing says you can't have both portability and better performance, just not necessarily at the same time with a single antenna. Your antenna selection in either case will be determined by the range of frequencies you wish to monitor. Technically speaking, receiving antennas designed to receive narrow frequency ranges perform best for those frequencies, but not much else. So if most of your listening is done on, let's say, 800MHz frequencies, an 800MHz antenna performs best. But if you're monitoring multiple ranges, such as VHF, UHF, and 800MHz, a wide band antenna is best. The antenna supplied with your scanner is that type. In order to gain some insight into this much-discussed question, check out the forum on Scanner/Receiver Antennas.
tvengr
Well Known Member
Hi! It would help to know your city, county, and state and which agencies you want to monitor to determine the best antenna for your scanner.
If you're monitoring mostly the 800 MHz band almost everyone's favorite is the Remtronix REM-800B
The Remtronix REM-800B (shown left) is a very compact flexible antenna providing extremely good reception in the range of 700 to 900 MHz.
It has +6dB minimum gain over a standard antenna.
This 7 inch tall antenna terminates to a male BNC connector.
$21.95/ea.
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