Attic mount questions

[guitar1580]

Hi all,
New member here, from the Wheeling, West Virginia area. Just got a BCT15. I live in a river valley, in a single story home, with a huge mountain behind me. I'm not able to use an outside antenna, and have been considering an attic mount, but have a few questions / concerns. Anyone who has had a similar situation may be able to provide some help.

1. My only attic access is a small hatch, 12 x 14 inches. Does anyone know if models such as the scantenna, or Diamond discone models can be taken apart and re-assembled in an attic?
2.My attic is only about 52 inches high, so a larger antenna would have to be mounted / suspended on its side. Being just a one story house, I'm wondering if that is gonna help me much, or if I would just be better off putting a magnet mount RV antenna in a window?

I'm mostly just looking to monitor local Fire, Law, EMT calls, maybe a little local county airport traffic, etc., mostly all around general purposes. I get fair reception for local stuff now with the factory tesescoping ant., but feel like I could do a little better with something a little larger & a little higher. Any info. appreciated.
JP

 

[SAR923]

With only 52 inches of space, you are far better off getting a Radio Shack 20-176. It's small enough to fit in the space, comes disassembled and flat so it would be easy to get in the attic, and does a fine job from about 100 MHz to 470 MHz and a passable job on 800 MHz. Having any antenna on its side is going to reduce the amount of incoming signal significantly. No antanna will penetrate that big mountain behind you though so don't expect miracles but getting your antenna up as a high as possible will still be better than using the standard telescoping antenna.

 

[guitar1580]

Thx SAR.
Has anyone tried one like the link below? It supposedly covers a wide range, and could fit in my attic or on a high window frame. In the top of my attic, I'd be gaining about 6 - 8 ft. of height from the room below.

http://www.scannerworld.com/content/product/model/ANT135BNC

 

[Junior08]

Check out a Diamond Discone DJ130N. Should fit into your attic without problems, especially if you do not need lowband reception. The vertical element on the top of the antenna is for lowband reception, and if it's not what you need to hear, then just don't attatch it!

 

[Bandingabout]

A larsen tri-band with mag mount stuck to a cookie sheet will amaze. Remarkably small, great performance and portable for other applications. http://cheapham.com/LAR-NMO-150-450-800.html

 

[kb2vxa]

Before we get too far afield please remember his attic is very limited for space. Don't forget the Diamond also has long "radial" elements so not using the vertical may not shrink it enough. Then too it doesn't need to be all that rugged indoors, never mind the price of that thing. In any case an antenna that includes Lo Band simply won't fit, period. That leaves him with a standard discone, being compact it seems to me best suited for the purpose. BTW, the manufacturer's specs will tell you if it will fit in there or not. (;->)

Wheeling eh? Now which mountain could that be? The river runs through a steep valley with two big mountains either side, a curve and another at one end. I couldn't see the other end of the valley from the highway but the WWVA tower is in the right spot looking down on the city. You have my deepest sympathy, VHF reception isn't the best when you live at the bottom of a hole and a 100' tower won't get you out of it.

 

[kewball]

Antenna Question.

Yes, I just bought a pro 2096. The county next to mine is about 20 miles away. I bought a 20-176 antenna and still can not pick up the digital transmission from the county next to me. I was wondering if I put it in the attic would it do any better? I live in central Virginia.
Thanks

 

[Hoofy]

If your house has aluminum siding, soffets, or a metal roof the window may be the best place. Keep in mind that a vertical antenna can be mounted upside down. So a cookie sheet in the rafters could support a mag mount upside down.
You said no outside antenna..... I am assuming that is a restriction?????? Maybe a disguised antenna would work for you. Something like a ventenna.

6 to 8 feet in height may not be as much advantage as an antenna with some gain.

If you have a peice of coax hang the scanner antenna up in the attic with some string and see if it makes a difference.

 

[guitar1580]

Thx for the ideas, guys. Yea, KB, its a pretty deep valley. I'm a little north of the city, near the river in Beech Bottom......even sounds low, doesnt it. Its a beautiful place to live, but not good for reception.
I think I may try the magnet mount & cookie sheet in the attic. I've heard other people mention good results. I only have about a 20 to 25 foot cable run.......would it be worth it to run low loss cable, and just one connector?
Has anyone tried running a splitter, and using one antenna in the attic and one in the window?

JP

 

[dougr1252]

I've used the RS antenna in an attic and it works fine for VHF/UHF. Use RG-8X / RG-8M or LMR-240 to feed it for your short run. 800 MHz indoors will disappoint unless the system is nearby or the antenna is next to a window. A splitter will cause signal loss and a second antenna can actually make reception worse. Stick to one at a time. Also keep in mind that the best physical location for an antenna is not always the best for reception, so move the antenna around if you can't hear what you're interested in.

 

[Rover]

I have a RS 20-176 in the attic of about the same size...works well for me. I have tried dualbanders on cookie sheets up there as well and they seem too to work well in the ham bands. All have worked better than the stock antennas on the radios. 73...Rover

 

[LarryMax]

Hi all,
New member here, from the Wheeling, West Virginia area. Just got a BCT15. I live in a river valley, in a single story home, with a huge mountain behind me. I'm not able to use an outside antenna,

I too live in a river valley and have a 14,000ft active volcano to my south and my east and west has 600ft hills.

I also have an HOA.

I was driving around my neighborhood and discovered 2 houses with weather stations on 10ft mast on their roof.

I grabbed the rat shack GP antenna and used an old satellite mast I had laying around to mount it. From the street it looks like one of the many vents I have on the roof. You can hardly see the antenna elements at all.

If a HOA is your issue for not mounting the antenna on the roof I would try this first. All they can do is warn you...a few times

My reception was much improved once I moved the antenna out of the attic.

It's been a month and I've seen the HOA walking around. No trouble yet.

Good luck

 

[donc13]

Hi all,
New member here, from the Wheeling, West Virginia area. Just got a BCT15. I live in a river valley, in a single story home, with a huge mountain behind me. I'm not able to use an outside antenna, and have been considering an attic mount, but have a few questions / concerns. Anyone who has had a similar situation may be able to provide some help.

1. My only attic access is a small hatch, 12 x 14 inches. Does anyone know if models such as the scantenna, or Diamond discone models can be taken apart and re-assembled in an attic?
2.My attic is only about 52 inches high, so a larger antenna would have to be mounted / suspended on its side. Being just a one story house, I'm wondering if that is gonna help me much, or if I would just be better off putting a magnet mount RV antenna in a window?

I'm mostly just looking to monitor local Fire, Law, EMT calls, maybe a little local county airport traffic, etc., mostly all around general purposes. I get fair reception for local stuff now with the factory tesescoping ant., but feel like I could do a little better with something a little larger & a little higher. Any info. appreciated.
JP

In your attic, a discone doesn't need to be on a pole, you can litteraly let it stand on it's radials. And yes, they come apart to get into the attic. I use one just like that...works very well. Another alternative, if the rafters are open, is to use a wire staple (the large kind...used to "nail" house wiring to studs) to hang the vertical element to one of the rafters. Don't forget...no wind, rain, snow, etc. to worry about in the attic.

The discone I have is the radio shack version......sells for about $70. Like I said, works very well for me.

 

[donc13]

Thx SAR.
Has anyone tried one like the link below? It supposedly covers a wide range, and could fit in my attic or on a high window frame. In the top of my attic, I'd be gaining about 6 - 8 ft. of height from the room below.

http://www.scannerworld.com/content/product/model/ANT135BNC

Only comes with 16' of cable and needs a metalic base to sit on.

This would be a better choice in my opinion:

http://www.scannerworld.com/content/product/model/SP800BNC

 

[oregontreehugger]

Similar predicament here. Mountains around, housing restrictions, want to listen to a range of comms.

I've tried the Scantenna outdoors (worked well), the Radio Shack 20-176 antenna (worked good on VHF), various handheld and NMO antennas, etc.

The end result was although the fancy antennas might pick up a stray distant signal here or there, the local geography is the real limiting factor. I have now turned to just using a commercial handheld antenna tuned for the bands I want to monitor (mostly VHF). Also picked up one of the magnet mount Larsen 150/450/800 NMO receive antennas. Planning to test that on a cookie sheet to see the results. Frankly, I'm not expecting any miracles.

 

[pathalogical]

I have a d 130 j in my attic with 50' of cable. There is about 6-7 ft of height in the attic and the vertical element is just a couple of inches from touching the peak of the attic ceiling. It is also mounted on an old metal shower curtain rod as a mast. As SAR2401 mentioned, it does work well in that freq range but for 800/900 Mhz it's nothing to brag about, hardly any improvement. However, I live in an old neighbourhood with above ground hydro, cable and phone wires running along the front AND rear of the house that are, obviously, higher than the roof. This puts my 130 in between and below these outside wires and is most likey reducing the effectiveness of my reception. So if your hood also has above ground utility wires it may affect your listening pleasure.

 

[kb2vxa]

Weul thar Geetar Man after reading a few more posts I've drawn a few conclusions. I've rejected a lot of those suggestions like a mag mount on a baking sheet, I'm going through that with another guy trying to refine it being it's the best he can do under the circumstances but I think you can do better. First go up there and take some measurements, you'll need them when selecting an antenna, these guys are only guessing.

Doing some on line shopping I came up with this;
http://www.google.com/products?q=di...a=X&oi=product_result_group&resnum=1&ct=title

I'll bet Flatt to Scruggs you'll find just what suits your purpose, most of these guys are pretty compact too. I believe the discone is pretty much the best all round scanner antenna for more reasons that I can state here without writing a book but there is one shortcoming, no signal gain. That means it's up to the coax to make up for it, here you need a compromise between low loss and price. Oh and like the man said you don't need a mast, it'll sith there on it's bottom elements just fine.

Oddly enough I've found that a variation on what the cable company uses; RG6-U quad shield available at Wally World or Home Despot gives just about the best bang for the buck and surprisingly few bucks at that. Don't worry about it being 75 ohm impedance when 50 is standard for the application, it really matters less than nothing and we're not building a rocket to Mars here. Don't forget your F connectors and crimping tool plus the appropriate adapters. Beware the frumious bandersnatch my son, some out there will whine about signal loss not having even attempted to measure it let alone finding it negligible. Even without facts debates rage on, I just thought I'd warn you.

One last thought, if you can't fit a discone or at least one without the Lo Band elements up there you haven't room for a steamer trunk either. What good is an attic if you can't hide a body in it?

 

[donc13]

Weul thar Geetar Man after reading a few more posts I've drawn a few conclusions. I've rejected a lot of those suggestions like a mag mount on a baking sheet, I'm going through that with another guy trying to refine it being it's the best he can do under the circumstances but I think you can do better. First go up there and take some measurements, you'll need them when selecting an antenna, these guys are only guessing.

Doing some on line shopping I came up with this;
http://www.google.com/products?q=di...a=X&oi=product_result_group&resnum=1&ct=title

I'll bet Flatt to Scruggs you'll find just what suits your purpose, most of these guys are pretty compact too. I believe the discone is pretty much the best all round scanner antenna for more reasons that I can state here without writing a book but there is one shortcoming, no signal gain. That means it's up to the coax to make up for it, here you need a compromise between low loss and price. Oh and like the man said you don't need a mast, it'll sith there on it's bottom elements just fine.

Oddly enough I've found that a variation on what the cable company uses; RG6-U quad shield available at Wally World or Home Despot gives just about the best bang for the buck and surprisingly few bucks at that. Don't worry about it being 75 ohm impedance when 50 is standard for the application, it really matters less than nothing and we're not building a rocket to Mars here. Don't forget your F connectors and crimping tool plus the appropriate adapters. Beware the frumious bandersnatch my son, some out there will whine about signal loss not having even attempted to measure it let alone finding it negligible. Even without facts debates rage on, I just thought I'd warn you.

One last thought, if you can't fit a discone or at least one without the Lo Band elements up there you haven't room for a steamer trunk either. What good is an attic if you can't hide a body in it?

Actually, most discone's even with the low band vertical....will fit in his attic. As I mentioned, I've got one setup like that....and yes, it is fed with RG6 since that's what I had available. An F-Connector to 239 adapter on one end, and F-BNC on the other. Works great for me.

Mine is the Rat Shack discone. I can only guess on it's total height, but it seems it's less than 4' but even if it's not....you can shorten the vertical easily and I'm sure it'll still work just fine.

 

[airgreek]

My signals come in GREAT with the following rat shack antenna

http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2103641

 

[Bandingabout]

With the Larsen, the antenna and mag base are seperate in price but allow possible options, mindful of the 12ft length on the mount coax. I like to keep a dual use in mind. I have a hole mount atop my truck cab and hear TRS 30 mi. away matching my Scantenna @ 25ft. Mountain/valley reception likely varies. DOH! Nevertheless, spending your budget is generally a good rule.