Austin Ferret Antenna?

[MacombMonitor]

Anyone familiar with the Austin Ferret antenna? It's a very expensive, wide-band antenna, that is about 8 feet long! Grove Enterprises used to sell them. I've never heard people talk about them. They're $223.00, which might explain why they're not talked about in the scanner hobby circles. They claim they are good for 25MHz ~ 1.8GHz. You can transmit on them, on 40, 100, 122, 146, 155, 465, 865, and 1280MHz, @ 100 watts. They are supplied with a "N" connector.

Someone once told me they were deaf on the 850MHz band, but I find that hard to believe if they're tuned well enough to allow transmitting @ 865MHz.

Here is a link:
http://www.rfwiz.com/AustinAntenna/AustinAntennaFerret.htm

I have a lot of respect for many of you in these forums, and would really appreciate some professional opinions on this antenna.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Al42]

Theory says it should work as a resonant antenna on a lot of frequencies, but the bandwidth at each frequency is going to be quite narrow, which is why, while it might work on 865 MHz, it's not a good scanner antenna for 800-900 MHz.

 

[MacombMonitor]

So not the best choice for a wide-band scanner antenna. Glad I asked :!:

Thanks

 

[LarrySC]

If you notice in their advertisement they have an amp that can be used with the antanna. A commerical antenna with gain is better than an amp. I do installations for the media. A local Fox station had a discone on a 4 way splitter and could not hear squat. I sold them an 800 only, 5db gain base, and a VHF/UHF dual band 2&3db gain base. With 2 800 scanners on 800 ant and three others on Dual Band antenna they were blown away by the total coverage area. They are now happy campers. The bottom line is to use a scanner antenna with exactly the freq range you need. All of these other freq ranges just lets signals down your coax that you dont want. SO the correct antenna is an attenuator of unwanted signals. Good Luck

 

[Al42]

The bottom line is to use a scanner antenna with exactly the freq range you need. All of these other freq ranges just lets signals down your coax that you dont want. SO the correct antenna is an attenuator of unwanted signals. Good Luck

Most scanists want VHF lo, VHF hi, UHF lo and UHF hi, plus maybe a few others. IOW, a broadband antenna.

 

[MacombMonitor]

If you notice in their advertisement they have an amp that can be used with the antanna. A commerical antenna with gain is better than an amp. I do installations for the media. A local Fox station had a discone on a 4 way splitter and could not hear squat. I sold them an 800 only, 5db gain base, and a VHF/UHF dual band 2&3db gain base. With 2 800 scanners on 800 ant and three others on Dual Band antenna they were blown away by the total coverage area. They are now happy campers. The bottom line is to use a scanner antenna with exactly the freq range you need. All of these other freq ranges just lets signals down your coax that you dont want. SO the correct antenna is an attenuator of unwanted signals. Good Luck

This might work, as I'm going to dedicate one scanner to Digital mode, in the 850MHz band, and the other one to MilAir, VHF/UHF.

Thanks!

 

[Halfpint]

I find this thread kinda hilarious. I'm in the process of getting ready to move and as such I've been slowly taking down various antennas I've had up in my `antenna farm' and the Ferret is going to be the among the very last ones, the others are a HF Engineering H-900 SW `active' antenna (For the R75) and an AOR SA7000 (For the PCR1000), to go. I get great coverage from VHF-Lo all the way up through UHF-Hi off of the Ferret with my scanners. Since I've relocated it closer to our house I've disconnected the amp as I am not having to `punch' signals through almost 150' of co-ax anymore. (The *usual* use for the amp on an antenna like the Ferret is to compensate for long co-ax runs *not* to compensate for the antenna itself. [From use experience the amp has most of it's gain up in the 453/460MHz and 800MHz area which exactly where one would also experience the most attenuation on even a high quality cable run.]) I *will* admit that there are times when a dedicated antenna will be better than a `wideband' antenna but then there are also times when the `wideband' antenna does a better job, too. In this case, having a minimal number of antennas up, the `wideband' antennas are `what the doctor ordered' and are doing pretty danged close to what all the other antennas I've taken down did. (So far the only `holes' I've discovered have all been in the HF area and really weren't all that unsuspected as they were the original reasons for the majority of the now removed antennas being put up in the first place. I can live with those `holes' for a while since I did so before I put up those antennas. {GRIN!})

Still... Having said all that paying over $200 for an antenna is a pretty `big pill to swallow' especially if it isn't something that looks really spectacular in some way or shape no matter what the specs or some people say about it. {GRIN!} (You want to see a really un-spectacular antenna? Take a good look at the AOR SA7000! It doesn't really `look' like all that much but once one gets it up the results are quite gratifying.)

Just an `Olde Fart's' 2¢ worth. {GRIN!}