Better Antenna

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bubba4602

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Jan 7, 2012
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Douglas Wy
I have the GRE-psr500 with the rubber ducky antenna. Is there anything out there that will give better reception inside. My Boss probly won't let me string miles of coax cable or drill holes in her wall. We live in a mobile home. I can recieve alot of the traffic but I think it could be better, if I just had a little better antenna.
 

n5ims

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Jul 25, 2004
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Since nearly everything in your area (Converse County, Wyoming (WY) Scanner Frequencies and Radio Frequency Reference) appears to be on the VHF-Hi band you would probably do well getting a single band VHF-Hi antenna for your scanner. What came with the scanner was a general-purpose antenna that worked on most any frequency (but not necessarily worked well on any of them).

These might be good choices for your application:
Pulse/Larsen Antennas - SPHL15FT - Pulse/Larsen Antennas - Helical - Standard - 1/4 Wave; Field Tunable; 136 - 221 MHz; BNC; 8in. - Arcadian Inc. (Larsen 1/4 wave BNC mount VHF-Hi duck)
Diamond RH77CA SRH77CA Antenna (you'll need the Diamond RH77CA for your scanner)


Please be aware that you'll probably get recommendations to get the Radio Shack / GRE 800 MHz antenna since it works well for other folks. The issue for you with that recommendation is unless most of what you're listening to is on 800 MHz, it won't be optimized for what you listen to (while it probably is optimized to what those folks listen to).
 

gewecke

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Illinois
Also keep in mind,CAUTION should be used with the psr-500/ or pro-106 because the female bnc connector has been known to loosen over repeated antenna changes, and is a low quality bnc connector in comparison.
I replaced mine with a commercial quality amphenol bnc.

73,
n9zas
 

wyomingmedic

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Aug 17, 2008
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Very little traffic in your area is WyoLink, so you are going to need a bit more antenna for sure. The Sheriff has 3 or 4 repeaters, of which only 1 or 2 can be heard from Douglas with normal antennas. I believe the closest WyoLink tower to you is ViHi and when I travel to the area, I hear a lot of WHP traffic on it.

If you can't hang anything on the walls or drill holes, you may have some problems. To get an antenna that works on VHF, takes up more area.

You can make a roll up J-pole from plans on the internet. This could be held to the wall or from the ceiling with a thumbtack and easily taken down. I have also seen folks make these from copper tape and stick them to windows.

Or if you have a suspended ceiling, you can move a tile aside and hide an antenna in there.

Most all the stuff to listen to in Converse county is hard to hear in Douglas due to it's physical location. Getting a better antenna up will certainly let you hear more.

WM
 
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