Apartment Antenna Question

[JDKelley]

Hey all!

Here's a curveball for you...

I live in a flat (fourth floor - up top! No kids overhead...) in a stucco building (yeah, I know. I hate it too. Faraday cage, and it's just ugly,) and I'd like to find an antenna or so that will give me good general coverage for my SDS100, Malahit DSP3, and the Belka I'm about to buy (so, 50kHz-2GHz or so? May take a few sticks...) Connectors look like they'll be either BNC or SMA, but that's not an issue for me. I am not overly worried about adapters, and probably already have what I'll need. I will be mounting them to a window, needing about 10' of lead cord to make it from the window, around behind a couple of shelves, to my desk. Mount will need to be by suction cup to glass, I've got three vertical feet or so to work with (I can't put antennae on the railing for the deck, I think they'd take exception to that. Be nice to live in a house again...)

Second question - I'll pillage around on this as well, but I'd like to know about a flexible antenna (so I don't break it on my oversize gut, I gotta work on that...) that will work for the 440-460MHz and 700-800MHz bands? This will be for "walking around," it won't get mounted to anything other than the radio, so SMA mount preferred (but I'll work with an adapter for whatever other mount comes in, I figure BNC or PL/SO-239, unless it's something weird...)

Thank you!

 

[spongella]

That's a lot of frequency to cover in an apartment. I'm no expert, just a radio hobbyist for 60+ years. You might want to use a loop antenna mounted on a tripod and turned by hand for HF (3 - 30 MHz). Or you run a continuous wire around the room on the inside corners along the ceiling.

440-460 MHzantennas are not that long and no need to get a flexible one. You can make one using the ARRL antenna book. Some libraries have that book or just get plans on line. Make sure to mount it vertically. If you're really looking for gain then make/buy yourself a beam antenna covering that frequency range. You can rotate it by hand if you mount it on something like a camera tripod.

As for 700 - 800 MHz, can't help you with that one, never listen to that band. What do you listen to in that segment of the spectrum?

Hope this helps you. Good luck.

 

[mmckenna]

Hey all!

Here's a curveball for you...

I live in a flat (fourth floor - up top! No kids overhead...) in a stucco building (yeah, I know. I hate it too. Faraday cage, and it's just ugly,) and I'd like to find an antenna or so that will give me good general coverage for my SDS100, Malahit DSP3, and the Belka I'm about to buy (so, 50kHz-2GHz or so? May take a few sticks...) Connectors look like they'll be either BNC or SMA, but that's not an issue for me. I am not overly worried about adapters, and probably already have what I'll need. I will be mounting them to a window, needing about 10' of lead cord to make it from the window, around behind a couple of shelves, to my desk. Mount will need to be by suction cup to glass, I've got three vertical feet or so to work with (I can't put antennae on the railing for the deck, I think they'd take exception to that. Be nice to live in a house again...)

With your location, long range reception isn't much of a big deal. The hills will limit range before the antenna will.

This might be one of the good applications for a discone. If you can put it out on a balcony while you are using it, and pull it back inside, or lay it down, when you are not, you might be OK with the landlord. Often hobbyists will use a tripod to hold the antenna, or a bucket with some concrete and a pipe as a mount. Not permanent, so doesn't void any lease agreements usually, and sometimes people will disguise them as potted plants.

Most hobbyist oriented discone antennas will give cover the VHF air band well up into the GHz range. Some have an extra whip that gives some minimal capability in the VHF low band.

Discone antennas are not outstanding performers from a range standpoint, but they do cover a lot of spectrum that agrees well with most scanners. Like I said, your local topology is going to limit your range before before the antenna really comes into play if you are wanting to listen to local traffic.

As for shortwave, I'd agree with the loop recommendation above. The benefit of the loop is that you can turn it to null out other noise sources.

If outside isn't an option at all, the loop indoors ~might~ work, as would the wire stretched around the room. But often the stucco construction relies on metal lath that will effectively block a lot of RF. There's no easy way around that.
For VHF/UHF/800, you can buy metal adhesive tape and run that on the window. Use an alligator clip to attach coax and you've got a good non-intrusive/no damage antenna that is easily removed.

Back when I was a kid, the window in my room had a metal frame. Most early antennas were just an alligator clip to the window frame. Not an option if you have newer windows with plastic frames.

Second question - I'll pillage around on this as well, but I'd like to know about a flexible antenna (so I don't break it on my oversize gut, I gotta work on that...) that will work for the 440-460MHz and 700-800MHz bands? This will be for "walking around," it won't get mounted to anything other than the radio, so SMA mount preferred (but I'll work with an adapter for whatever other mount comes in, I figure BNC or PL/SO-239, unless it's something weird...)

Thank you!

Honestly, your stock antenna will probably work just fine. Like I mentioned above, the topology around you is going to be the bigger limiting factor. If you need something more flexible, then I'm sure someone here will have some good suggestions.

 

[JDKelley]

With your location, long range reception isn't much of a big deal. The hills will limit range before the antenna will.

This might be one of the good applications for a discone. If you can put it out on a balcony while you are using it, and pull it back inside, or lay it down, when you are not, you might be OK with the landlord. Often hobbyists will use a tripod to hold the antenna, or a bucket with some concrete and a pipe as a mount. Not permanent, so doesn't void any lease agreements usually, and sometimes people will disguise them as potted plants.

Most hobbyist oriented discone antennas will give cover the VHF air band well up into the GHz range. Some have an extra whip that gives some minimal capability in the VHF low band.

Discone antennas are not outstanding performers from a range standpoint, but they do cover a lot of spectrum that agrees well with most scanners. Like I said, your local topology is going to limit your range before before the antenna really comes into play if you are wanting to listen to local traffic.

As for shortwave, I'd agree with the loop recommendation above. The benefit of the loop is that you can turn it to null out other noise sources.

If outside isn't an option at all, the loop indoors ~might~ work, as would the wire stretched around the room. But often the stucco construction relies on metal lath that will effectively block a lot of RF. There's no easy way around that.
For VHF/UHF/800, you can buy metal adhesive tape and run that on the window. Use an alligator clip to attach coax and you've got a good non-intrusive/no damage antenna that is easily removed.

Back when I was a kid, the window in my room had a metal frame. Most early antennas were just an alligator clip to the window frame. Not an option if you have newer windows with plastic frames.



Honestly, your stock antenna will probably work just fine. Like I mentioned above, the topology around you is going to be the bigger limiting factor. If you need something more flexible, then I'm sure someone here will have some good suggestions.

You mention topology - fire up Google Maps, Earth View. I live in Milpitas. I have no trouble picking up San Francisco, Marin County, Alameda County, Contra Costa County (Santa Rita Jail comes in loud & proud,) and Half Moon Bay, Santa Cruz, and Watsonville all come in from the coast. I've had Salinas come in from Points South. I know I'm in a Valley, but I seem to get some killer knife-edge over the mountains! And, from time to time, some atmospheric tunnelling comes into play, and my range gets extended even more.

Surprises me, too.

I've got a handful of PRO-2006s that want repair, I'll tune those into air band and other low-freq analog things. Public safety around here is still "primarily" 440-460MHz, but they're starting to upmigrate, thus the interest in the middle UHF (in addition to the low UHF.)

That's a lot of frequency to cover in an apartment. I'm no expert, just a radio hobbyist for 60+ years. You might want to use a loop antenna mounted on a tripod and turned by hand for HF (3 - 30 MHz). Or you run a continuous wire around the room on the inside corners along the ceiling.

440-460 MHzantennas are not that long and no need to get a flexible one. You can make one using the ARRL antenna book. Some libraries have that book or just get plans on line. Make sure to mount it vertically. If you're really looking for gain then make/buy yourself a beam antenna covering that frequency range. You can rotate it by hand if you mount it on something like a camera tripod.

As for 700 - 800 MHz, can't help you with that one, never listen to that band. What do you listen to in that segment of the spectrum?

Hope this helps you. Good luck.

The flexible antenna is for when I'm walking around with the radio - I hang over the beltline just a bit, and I don't want to crimp a telescoping or rigid antenna...

I've read about loops on the Malahit Telegram group, and I need to peruse that again for a model number or two, they look interesting.

Sadly, I haven't any space to put a tripod (even temporarily - we're wedged in here pretty tight! It may be the two of us in a 2-br flat, but we're still sorting through her mother's stuff - died 2009 - and we've had two roommates die on us in the meantime - obit. 2012 and 2015 - and we inherited all their stuff! - and we've been homeless a couple of times in the intervening, plus she was downchecked for a few years from orthopaedic operations, which is why we're still dealing with all this stuff.

And it was the two of us, in a house, with a garage. Even with all the stuff I've lost (custom-built workbenches, probably $20-25k in tools, a truck, two cabinet benches, ...) not having a garage is putting a crimp in where I can put things, I still need somewhere I can work. And I don't have that. Nor do I have anywhere to put the tools I've managed to save so far (power tool set I still use, tabletop machine tools, ...)

 

[mmckenna]

You mention topology - fire up Google Maps, Earth View. I live in Milpitas. I have no trouble picking up San Francisco, Marin County, Alameda County, Contra Costa County (Santa Rita Jail comes in loud & proud,) and Half Moon Bay, Santa Cruz, and Watsonville all come in from the coast. I've had Salinas come in from Points South. I know I'm in a Valley, but I seem to get some killer knife-edge over the mountains! And, from time to time, some atmospheric tunnelling comes into play, and my range gets extended even more.

Surprises me, too.

I'm familiar with the area.

My point was that you don't need a high gain antenna to get good performance from where you are. As compared to being out on the plains where you can see all the way to the horizon with no hills in the way.

 

[prcguy]

There are some antennas that will work across the needed frequency range. One is the Flexmaster antenna made by Radio Reconnaissance Technologies for military surveillance. The Flexmaster is rated 300KHz to 2GHz and is portable being about 3ft tall and foldable. They have fold down ground radials, a hanging loop and lots of velcro for attaching to most anything in the field. I have two of them and they work ok for the size picking up HF, VHF and UHF and HF works better than any short whip I've used on a portable receiver.

Radio Reconnaissance did a lot of work with AOR 8200MKIII and AR8600MKII receivers modifying them and packaging with various antennas for military field use, so these antennas are used with civilian type scanners and receivers within the US military.

These antennas are expensive new but show up on eBay for reasonable prices now and then. I think I paid about $75 each for the ones here.