Pro 96 scanner, Radio Shack Model: 20-043 Discone antenna. I would like to place the antenna in my attic and connect it to the Pro 96 while I am monitoring at home. This antenna will be mounted to the wood framing in the attic. Do I need to run a ground to the antenna? Is this antenna set-up going to be any better than the rubber ducking that came with the scanner, or am I wasting money? Which cable; RG59, RG58, RG6, RG8. I am mainly going to be monitoring VHF traffic from a county 60 miles away, and local VHF and Starcom 700/800Mhz traffic. I realize the antenna would perform much better outside but I cannot mount it outside due to subdivision regulations. Thanks.
Attic antenna
- Thread starter yank24
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fineshot1
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Trying to monitor any traffic that is 60 miles away is tough to accomplish with a discone which is a zero gain antenna, and there are many other variables which make it difficult answer your question.
ERICMYERS
Member
No,probably,no,best you can afford but RG58 is very lossy on long runs,
I get 60 miles on my 20-176 /RG8U /mounted on a camera tripod / second floor of my house antenna rig reasonably well, and far better than on ducks or telescopics. I've got maybe 60 bucks in that antenna setup and consider it worthwhile. One day, I'll mount it in the attic to please the XYL.
Starcom can be a test of the nerves, and it can take some work to find the right combo. Too much signal from simulcast towers can create intermod, too little can make for troubled decode. I had some luck with putting a duck on a 90 degree bnc adapter and angling it to sort of attenuate one tower over another when I had terrible intermod issues. Trial and error for YOUR location is required, there is no single answer, and you can't have too many antennas to play with.
20-043 is big and a little expensive. I'd get a scantenna or ST2 from Scannermaster if I were buying another. A lot of people including me report very good results with the smaller and truly cheap 20-176 "sputnik"
Eric
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Thanks guys! The Radio Shack Model: 20-043 Discone came with the scanner but has never been opened. The 60 miles is drive distance. I figured on a map that is is more like 45-50 miles to the repeater tower as a crow flies. I have a lot of left over RG6U Shielded Low Loss cable from a recent remodel. Will this work for the cable? I need a run of about 10' vertical through the ceiling and 20-25' horizontal in the attic.
ERICMYERS
Member
RG6u should do fine at that distance, assuming you do a good job on the connectors, and it's free if it's laying around, so well worth a shot. read the wiki on antennas for some real good tips.
Cheers,
Eric
Cheers,
Eric
Testing city hall. I found that we are allowed to have 1 dish, mounted no higher than 5ft. above the highest point of the house. I have placed an old DirecTV dish over a 1-1/4" pipe which is mounted to the side of my house. By bending the tabs on the top of the dish mount the dish slid on down the pipe to roof peak level. The pipe is exactly 5ft. higher than the peak of my roof. I then mounted my Discone to the top of the pipe. We will se if this works. I did end up running RG58 to the antenna. Where it is mounted I only needed a 30' run. It seems to be working fine.
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