ARMER Specific Antenna

[fwfdengine2]

Hello Minnesota Forum,

I am looking for a reasonably priced roof-mount antenna for my house that will work with ARMER. I currently have a Radio Shack Magnet-mount mobile scanner antenna - RadioShack.com antenna that works great for currently used VHF frequencies. These are the ARMER sites that I can receive on portable.

Alden Site, 24 Miles Away, 1-2 Signal Strength

Geneva Site, 15 Miles Away, 1-5 Signal Strength

Owatonna Site, 27 Miles Away, 1-3 Signal Strength

Janesville Site, 24 Miles Away, 0-1 Signal Strength

The Waldorf Site is 13 miles away and I should be able to easily receive it once it comes online.

I hooked up my scanner (BCD396XT) to my current roof-mount antenna and it did not help, it actually made things worse. What would be a good antenna for my use? It would also be nice to have VHF/Narrowband receiving capabilities too.

I did not know if I should put this in the Antenna forum, as this is a location specific question.

Thanks,
fwfdengine2

 

[ThinBlueLine22]

You will need an antenna that is "tuned" to the 800 MHz band. Using this would cut down on your reception of VHF though. I have no idea if it is possible to use two antenna for one device. I just did a quick Google search and I think you could probably pick one up fairly reasonable.

 

[fwfdengine2]

Now my thoughts are keeping the current antenna up for VHF reception and getting a different one for ARMER. I still have the question thought... What would you recomend for a good 800 MHz Antenna?

@ThinBlueLine22: Which County are you in down here in South-Central MN with myself?

fwfdengine2

 

[dwgelle]

Here are a couple of antennas that would work and the last link is a mobile antenna base adaptor.

Monitor Antenna 3 band
Larsen NMO150/450/800 Tri Band VHF, UHF, 800 MHz Motorola Style Antenna | TESSCO

800mhz
PCTEL Maxrad BMAX8033 806-896 3dB Black Closed | TESSCO

Mobile to base adaptor
PCTEL Maxrad MBS800 800 MHz Base Adapter | TESSCO

 

[kb0nly]

Antenex FG8246 824-896 MHz - 6dB, N Female connector.

Thats what a lot of MN scanner owners are buying...

As for two antennas at once, yes. I have a Maxrad 800Mhz commercial antenna that i got cheap off eBay and i combined that with a VHF/UHF dualband antenna using a Comet CF-4130B diplexer. The Maxrad 800 antenna is on the high side rated for 800-1400Mhz and the VHF/UHF dualband antenna is on the low side rated for 1.3-500Mhz.

This gives me the best of both worlds as the counties around here are keeping their VHF paging but everything else is going to ARMER.

That Laird antenna can't be beat from the results i have seen, well for me my Maxrad is just as good but you get the point. One guy i helped setup replaced a discone with that Laird, the towers he can hear jumped from 1/4 to full or near full scale, was worth the investment. I went a bit overboard on keeping loss down and ran 1/2" heliax from the 800 antenna into the shack, but i wanted ever drop of signal i could get.. LOL

 

[kb0nly]

Oh i didnt really catch if you were looking for base or mobile, but now you have another option listed just in case.

 

[fwfdengine2]

Thank you all for your help. I will look into the options givin and make a decision!

Thanks!
fwfdengine2

 

[bat_wings_2000]

Putting a good antenna on the roof is one thing, but pay attention to the feedline your using
At 800 your feedline loss could defeat any gain you get from an outside antenna.

 

[fwfdengine2]

What is the feedline?

 

[dwgelle]

Feed line is your Coax you are using between the scanner and the antenna. It's common and cheap at times to use RG6 or RG58/59 which generally will work fine if you are not running over 50-100ft or so of it. Then you start getting more signal loss from the length and your signals will be weak. RG 8 is a very good sized center conductor for longer runs of coax and not as lossy.

 

[fwfdengine2]

Thanks

 

[blue5011]

I use a R/S 20-176 VHF/UHF/800 Scanner antenna ($29.95), w/ 50' of RG-58 as the feedline, located 35' high on my roof. Easily hear Sherburn, Lake Crystal, Truman, Mapleton, Alden, and Walters towers. Best thing about this antenna is it can be used as a 2m transmit antenna also.

A SO-239 with a 6" wire soldered on the center conductor and 4) 6" elements dropped @ 45 degrees will also work as a 800mhz (ARMER) antenna (less than $5 investment), plus time to construct of course.

 

[ThinBlueLine22]

I use a R/S 20-176 VHF/UHF/800 Scanner antenna ($29.95), w/ 50' of RG-58 as the feedline, located 35' high on my roof. Easily hear Sherburn, Lake Crystal, Truman, Mapleton, Alden, and Walters towers. Best thing about this antenna is it can be used as a 2m transmit antenna also.

A SO-239 with a 6" wire soldered on the center conductor and 4) 6" elements dropped @ 45 degrees will also work as a 800mhz (ARMER) antenna (less than $5 investment), plus time to construct of course.

Curious that you are receiving the Sherburn Tower since they haven't even bid that out for construction. Also, the Walters tower is also still physically under contruction and not transmitting. I have no doubt that you could physically receive those towers if they were transmitting, but they aren't. Where do you get your info on what towers you are receiving?

 

[blue5011]

Curious that you are receiving the Sherburn Tower since they haven't even bid that out for construction. Also, the Walters tower is also still physically under contruction and not transmitting. I have no doubt that you could physically receive those towers if they were transmitting, but they aren't. Where do you get your info on what towers you are receiving?

I don't know what else to tell you or show you other than what I already have pointed out on a different post. Whether the tower and/or sites are up/ down/ sideways, I have gotten a display of:
from 2/16/2011 Walters tower (ID: 28562 and 11244) and the Sherburn tower (ID: 21021 and 4304)
from 2/17/2011 28502,NFM,0,0,379 Walters,,ID:28502,12:16:57 PM,2/17/2011,00:00:09,1297945017,337,NONE,,
from 2/17/2011 3360,NFM,0,0,379 Walters,,ID:3360,12:52:57 PM,2/17/2011,00:00:04,1297947177,367,NONE,,

I have both Walters and Sherburn tower site frequencies programmed in my BCD996XT and use Freescan to log hits. Why would these sites show up on or stop the scan? Could it be that a Technician is transmitting from another site with the radio "defaulted" to claim that it was @ Walters or Sherburn? I sure don't know enough about how these P25 radios work, but I do know what I see on my computer screen.

 

[ThinBlueLine22]

I guess it's possible that they swapped some equipment around. Do you still get traffic that purports to be from those sites? Did you get your frequencies from the DB here? Do you program in all the freqs for a site or just the Control and Alternate Control Channels (If your scanner supports that)?

 

[NDRADIONUT]

6" is a 1/4 wave on 450 mhz.... 3.2" is what you want for 850 mhz

 

[bigalan]

antenna

6.4 would be 1/2 wave, how about getting sone gain with aa 5/8 wave?

 

[blue5011]

6" is a 1/4 wave on 450 mhz.... 3.2" is what you want for 850 mhz

The six inch antenna length was just a guess I took while looking at my R/S antenna. You and I both know that 800 mhz signals care more about height than anything else. So much for my attempts to explain the a simple antenna.

 

[blue5011]

I guess it's possible that they swapped some equipment around. Do you still get traffic that purports to be from those sites? Did you get your frequencies from the DB here? Do you program in all the freqs for a site or just the Control and Alternate Control Channels (If your scanner supports that)?

It was mostly the 16th and 17th that I saw traffic "purported" to be from Walters and Sherburn. I have not heard or rather seen that there has been any traffic lately. But then I have not been keeping full logs either. I am only reporting what comes across the screen here. I am not trying to make anything up.

My BCD996XT has all the site specific frequencies I found in the RR page programmed in. I bought the scanner in December and could not figure out how to even program a "trunked" system. Thanks to you and others here on this site I now can listen in on what I used to do with my two FT-2500 (VHF) radios (state troopers and county sheriff).

I have yet to drive to the Walter site or the Sherburn site. Walters (aka Keister hill) already has many towers and antennas located there now, and I don't know if the state is building a new one there or not. I did drive by the Truman site, a couple of months ago, and see that there is a new tower there. Heard the technicians say they would be down for a few hours while they finished swapping the last bit of equipment over to the new tower.

I was in Fairmont yesterday, I forgot to venture to Sherburn to see that tower site.

 

[ThinBlueLine22]

I have yet to drive to the Walter site or the Sherburn site. Walters (aka Keister hill) already has many towers and antennas located there now, and I don't know if the state is building a new one there or not. I did drive by the Truman site, a couple of months ago, and see that there is a new tower there. Heard the technicians say they would be down for a few hours while they finished swapping the last bit of equipment over to the new tower.

I was in Fairmont yesterday, I forgot to venture to Sherburn to see that tower site.

Don't bother trying to find the Sherburn tower, the site is in the final review stage, meaning there is nothing you would be able to see.