BCD436HP/BCD536HP: Antenna

[WeBeCinYa]

I have to admit my knowledge is limited on how antennas work, but day one when I got my 436 I slapped a rubber ducky 800mhz RS antenna on it. I lived in an area with P25 at the time, and it seemed to perform well.

Now I live in an area where all systems are VHF, no trucking or 800mhz to worry about. My question is, would the stock antenna work BETTER for this type of reception?

What is really driving this question is that I am missing transmissions lately on EMS channels I used to pick up all the time. I live in the same place, the frequencies have stayed the same, but very limited reception.

Thoughts?

 

[djeplett]

The answer is probably because the RS800 is tuned for 800MHz. Think of it like a guitar string... If the string is not tuned correctly it doesn't sound right.

I bought the Remtronix antenna that is a descendent of the RS800 and I have noticed it is 5dBm worse on the weather channels as compared to the stock duck on my SDS100. That is to be expected. It is however about 10dBm better than the stock duck on the 800MHz system I follow every day. And that is also to be expected.

If you want the best reception on VHF while still being somewhat portable get a telescopic antenna. There are many brands out there. It puts more stress on your antenna connection, though. So you have to be careful.

 

[rcool101]

Only you can answer that. Try them both? What ever works

 

[hiegtx]

I have to admit my knowledge is limited on how antennas work, but day one when I got my 436 I slapped a rubber ducky 800mhz RS antenna on it. I lived in an area with P25 at the time, and it seemed to perform well.

Now I live in an area where all systems are VHF, no trucking or 800mhz to worry about. My question is, would the stock antenna work BETTER for this type of reception?

What is really driving this question is that I am missing transmissions lately on EMS channels I used to pick up all the time. I live in the same place, the frequencies have stayed the same, but very limited reception.

Thoughts?

The R/S 800MHz antenna, or the current Remtronix version, is great on 700 & 80MHz systems. I find it works reasonably well on Uhf (Dallas (city) PD, Fire, and EMS is on Uhf). However, it's not the best choice for Vhf.

Try the original, stock, antenna and see if your Vhf reception improves enough to avoid many missed calls. If not, then you may need to try something different. The RH77CA is much better on Vhf & Uhf. That's the version with a BNC connector, so you'd use the SMA->BNC adapter that came with the scanner. Or order the SRH77CA, which is SMA, and needs no adapter. I prefer the RH789 antenna (that's BNC; the SMA version is SRH789). That's a telescoping antenna, so you can extend, or collapse it, to optimize reception on your target frequencies. (There's a chart on the antenna to guide you to the correct length.) The links are to Universal Radio, but the same antennas are available from multiple other sources, including Amazon & ScannerMaster.