Antenna Splitter Question

[NYRHKY94]

Hello All:

Looking for some advice/feedback from the group regarding splitting my outside antenna between 2-3 scanners. The posts I've seen elsewhere on this subject appear to vary widely from commercial level multicoupler products (Stridsberg), down to the basic splitters carried at Radio Shack.

A specific question I have is whether it would be OK to use a "multiswitch" for this type of set-up? I have a couple of those sitting around from when I had DSS and cable coming into the house.

One of these is passive and the other is an active model (Channel Master 6314 IFD). Both have an input for VHF/UHF and 4 outputs. Any thoughts or input on whether either of these could be used without harming my scanners, would be greatly appreciated.

P.S. I did hook the active multiswitch up to a couple "old" scanners I have for an intial test. Both seemed operated fine on all frequencies and appeared to be stronger signal wise.

Thanks in advance!

 

[EDACS_Tech]

Well, without seeing what you have - I would do what you have been doing and experiment with what you have and see how well it performs. Splitters that are purchased from RadioShack, et. al. seem to be very lossy - especially if you are using it for 800 MHz monitoring. At lower frequencies (VHF/UHF), you may have more success. If you can afford a receiver multicoupler - which typically have unity gain, or at best very small amounts of gain - you will be better off. If you can measure how much gain or loss you have through the device, you will get a better picture of what to do with what you have.

 

[NYRHKY94]

After reviewing the specs for the Channel Master multiswitch (6314IFD) and testing 2 scanners split from my outside Scantenna for several days now, this set-up appears to do a very nice job of increasing my signal strength without any noitceable loss.

Eventhough the multiswitch is designed for DSS/Antenna-Cable splitting situations, the specs state that the switch amplifies VHF/UHF signals in the 54-806 MHz range when using the VHF/UHF input. One of the bigger differences I noticed right away was for the air band, which was a nice bonus for me as I like to monitor that on one of the 2 scanners.

The switch has 2 more available outputs, so I'll hook up the 3rd scanner now and see how things go with that. As of right now, it looks like the old multiswitch I had laying around (retails now around $60) saved me from buying a Stridsberg and gets me away from the cheaper TV type splitter.

Thought I'd pass the above along. Thanks!