Austin Spectra

[Eugene]

Greetings. Does anyone have any experience with the Austin Spectra antenna with the base station pole mount accessory. I used to have an Antenna Specialist MON-31 which was pretty good but is not made anymore. Looking to get something comparable. Thanks for the input.

Eugene Hileman KG4AVE

 

[ka3jjz]

You didn't say much here about your situation - indoors vs. outdoors, what freq ranges you are interested in hearing, and so on. It's very hard to be qualitative without some idea of what you're trying to hear.

I've had that pole mount for awhile, and while I had it up in my attic (before I moved) it worked pretty well, considering that it was primarily indoors. However, the Spectra is only good on some freq ranges - so a little more specifics is in order. There are better alternatives out there...Mike

 

[Eugene]

OK mike.....sorry about that. It will be outdoors, probably about 20 feet up. Belden 9913 co-ax. Pretty much from 30-800 MHz.....more so VHF Hi-Lo.UHF. Want to do DX and aircraft mostly. The MON 31 was about the best all around I had. Actually got skip from CHP ( I live on the East Coast). But I digress.
I have a scantenna...which is ok...but a friend of mine still has his MON-31 and it runs circles around the scantenna. Anyway if there are better alternatives that's what I would like to hear about. Thanks

 

[Eugene]

I should have said in the above post the frequency range more 30-500 MHz, not 30-800MNz....sorry.

Eugene Hileman KG4AVE

 

[ka3jjz]

There are many possibilities here - a Diamond Discone, the antennas from DPD Productions (the individual involved with that company is a RR member) are 2 good ones to start with. Even the NilJon antennas have their supporters (although to be fair, there are a similar number of folks that don't like them)

Our scanner antennas wiki has these links and more...be sure to dig out some of the reviews on eHam as well...

Scanner Antennas - The RadioReference Wiki

Based on some recent traffic, I'd take a serious look at the DPD Productions offerings...Mike

 

[rmosier]

I have the Diamond discone on a mast about 25 feet off the ground for my base scanner. And an Austin spectra on my jeep. I tried the spectra on my base set up once and it didn't work very well compaired to the discoone. Great on the jeep though.

 

[LIScanner101]

Austin made a base station attachment for the Spectra. It was a pole-type accessory with an NMO mount on top and a female N jack on the bottom. However, I think Austin discontinued it.

 

[Rt169Radio]

There is a lot of antenna choices out there, I would look at the antennas on some radio stores online and pick some that cover the range you want and that you like, then start researching reviews and comments on them.

 

[Eugene]

Thanks for the input everyone. To Mike...I did look at the DPD antennas and the reviews state it does better than the ST-2 which looks like the same antenna as the scantenna. Will have to give them a serious look. Thanks again.

Eugene Hileman KG4AVE

 

[signal500]

I use the Comet DS-150S Discone Antenna on a pole about 25 feet above ground, works great. I do not have any experience with the Austin Spectra base mount, but for a mobile application it works good.

 

[ka3jjz]

The Omni X and ST2 are 2 very different designs - if you read the description carefully you'll see what I mean.

Mike

 

[Eugene]

Yes I see............I will go with whatever design works best. Thanks again.

Eugene KG4AVE

 

[LIScanner101]

What makes the Austin Spectra a slightly less stellar performer on low band than the old A/S MON Series antennas? I had both many years ago. I cut down the whips on both of them to optimize their 46.12MHz performance for Nassau County FireComm (using their charts - I did not analyze them for resonance after cutting). Even with that, my MON-53 was still better. Is it because overall the MON-53 was longer?

 

[prcguy]

I think the extra length has some to do with it. Austin is also a very small (very very small) company and probably does not have the R&D resources that Antenna Specialists has or had when these antennas were designed, so the A/S could simply be a better design on VHF lo.

I've posted this chart several times before but here it is again. This was comparing a broad band military antenna to an Austin Spectra and A/S MON52. All antennas were mounted on the same vehicle (H3 Hummer) and on the same mount comparing the exact same signals. The green line is a reference provided by the military antenna and you can directly compare the Spectra in blue to the A/S in red.

The chart shows at peak, the Spectra is a tiny bit better than the A/S but overall the A/S has a much broader response and is within about 5dB of peak performance from about 32 to 43MHz while the Spectra is within 5dB from about 33MHz to about 37 or 38MHz. So for a particular set frequency the A/S will give better performance across a broader range than the Spectra.
prcguy

What makes the Austin Spectra a slightly less stellar performer on low band than the old A/S MON Series antennas? I had both many years ago. I cut down the whips on both of them to optimize their 46.12MHz performance for Nassau County FireComm (using their charts - I did not analyze them for resonance after cutting). Even with that, my MON-53 was still better. Is it because overall the MON-53 was longer?

 

[Eugene]

Now that's an interesting graph. Breaks down the side by side performance beautifully. The A/S definitely has wider response on VHF Lo. What's interesting to note is the deep drop off of the A/S on mil-air. Might not make much of a difference as most mil-air traffic is 5 miles in the air and being line of sight reception can be heard from a pretty good distance. Thanks for that great graph.
Eugene KG4AVE

 

[prcguy]

Thanks, I couldn't get the original Excel spreadsheet to look the way I wanted so the I made the graph from scratch with Photoshop. Big PIA.

Its interesting the A/S works better in the lower UHF region 406 to 470MHz since it was designed before the UHF T band was in widespread use. Sorry there is no 800 data since the antenna article concentrated on a military antenna that covered 30-512MHz.

Not counting 800MHz and UHF T band I think the A/S is the best antenna for VHF lo, hi and UHF monitoring.
prcguy

Now that's an interesting graph. Breaks down the side by side performance beautifully. The A/S definitely has wider response on VHF Lo. What's interesting to note is the deep drop off of the A/S on mil-air. Might not make much of a difference as most mil-air traffic is 5 miles in the air and being line of sight reception can be heard from a pretty good distance. Thanks for that great graph.
Eugene KG4AVE

 

[Ubbe]

Interesting to see that the A/S antenna are so good at 50MHz where it also has it highest SWR of its entire frequency range. Proves that you cannot tune an antenna to best performance by the SWR value.
http://shakespeare-ce.com/military/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2015/11/SFB-3512VRC_D.pdf

/Ubbe

 

[prcguy]

Don't you mean the Shakespeare antenna is good at 50MHz? The gain of the Shakespeare is pretty flat from 30 to 50MHz and my chart shows how bad the A/S and Austin are compared to it in that range.
prcguy

Interesting to see that the A/S antenna are so good at 50MHz where it also has it highest SWR of its entire frequency range. Proves that you cannot tune an antenna to best performance by the SWR value.
http://shakespeare-ce.com/military/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2015/11/SFB-3512VRC_D.pdf

/Ubbe