Can't hear Indianapolis Center.........

[DickH]

... a beam antenna should do well, since beams are highly directional.
Dick

I forgot to mention, if you decide to try the beam, you will need to turn it toward the airport. Suggestion: When you run the coax up to the attic (or down from the attic), run a pair of wires with it so you can take a speaker up to the attic. Then, as you turn the antenna you can hear the signal improve.
Dick

 

[Yokoshibu]

You apparently didn't fully comprehend my previous post. There is no angle or direction to point a yagi. Regardless of whether we are talking about a low altitude, high altitude or super high altitude sector all of the angles from 0 through 90 degrees are used to communicate. So there is no one particular angle that you can point a yagi for low altitude aircraft as example. Since airplanes are moving objects, it doesn't work the same as pointing your satellite dish.

The maximum path length for a superhigh sector is about 268 NMi. Propagation loss equation says that the path loss @ 126 MHz is about 128 dB. A 10 watt transmitter will deliver approximately a 5.5 microvolt signal to the aircrafts antenna (ignoring cable and obstruction losses). If additional signal level is needed then the transmitting site can raise the power or add an omnidirectional gain antenna. These provide an additional 4 dBi. Gain is not free and any gain antena sacrifices radiation in some direction.

http://www.antennaproducts.com/40detail.htm

While a yagi and a log periodic may look similar, they aren't. They work on entirely different principles. The yagi is a parasite array and usually only has one driven element. The LP has all the elements driven and the theory of operation is much more complex. But those are topics for the antenna forum.

Dan

Thanks for answering my question!

 

[Luis_C]

I enjoy the talk about how center, towers and the planes communicate. Helps me understand more.


Attic antenna. I do not want to put one up outside. The attic is the only way i want to go.
Now, i dont know which antenna to go with. I have a catalog from universal radio that i have been looking thru.

My radio is an Icom R20. Would like to experiment with my Maldol 500 antenna and a nice preamp. Am considering an antenna in the attic though. I am mainly interested in the Airbands but will listen to anything. Think i need a wideband antenna.

Antennas that i have seen in my catalog.

1) AOR SA7000, DA3000
2) Icom AH7000



thanks again guys.
steve

Hi, I believe that thise antennas don't provide gain. But, as you said that you want a preamp, and you have a handheld scanner, really good one, but handheld, is that the preamp would probably affect than help. If you are really going to get one, get a filter, like the Aor bandpass filter for airband.

Personally, I have a Pro-95, there's places where definitely I can't listen to anything in airband, specially when I'm near to some VHF antennas, or in places where FM and TV broadcast is near. It overloads really easy, as most handhelds do. In most of the airband frequencies I listen to, if I lower the squelch, not at the min, but at 1/5, more or less, I can listen to FM broadcasts intermod. In most of the city I can hear the airplanes and most of the time APP with a telescopic antenna. But there's certain places, where FM and TV reception gets blocked, and that is a bit higher than most of the places that I can even listen to Atis being at 10miles from the airport, and ground, really good, and I can't being at 2 miles from the airport! Just being at 1 mile of the aiport, or at a really tall mountain and I'm really sure that as soon as I get a filter, it will be really good in most of the city, and that now I will be able to use my ground plane antenna, because it overloads my scanner.