Diamond RH77CA Thumbs DOWN

[Ramathorne]

Slapped the above antenna on my GRE 500 this morning...Gre 800mhz antenna gave me 3 solid and 4 flashing bars at all time...Attached the Diamond and BAM, 0 bars flashing 1...

Left it on for 15 minutes and took it off...Sold it...Absolutely no good for my rural area...Only thing that came in was NOAA at 5 bars..

As soon as I reattached the GRE 800mhz antenna, right back in action...Amazing how much difference there can be in antennas...I am going to try a Condor next and or perhaps a Watson...More or less just doing it for an experiment...

 

[thomast77]

Slapped the above antenna on my GRE 500 this morning...Gre 800mhz antenna gave me 3 solid and 4 flashing bars at all time...Attached the Diamond and BAM, 0 bars flashing 1...

Left it on for 15 minutes and took it off...Sold it...Absolutely no good for my rural area...Only thing that came in was NOAA at 5 bars..

As soon as I reattached the GRE 800mhz antenna, right back in action...Amazing how much difference there can be in antennas...I am going to try a Condor next and or perhaps a Watson...More or less just doing it for an experiment...

You are comparing apples and oranges. The Diamond RH77CA is a dual band 144mhz/440mhz antenna. It will work good for VHF/UHF. It will not outperform an 800mhz antenna on 800mhz.

 

[Rt169Radio]

Well a dedicated antenna for a certain freq band would work better then a antenna designed to cover more then one band.

 

[N9JCQ]

Research research research!

 

[ridgescan]

Diamond RH77CA Product Reviews

32 reviews and almost a perfect score

also those GRE's from what I have learned, are crazy sensitive and may not like too much antenna.

 

[drsl2000]

Research research research!

"The Diamond RH77CA is an HT antenna for transmit on 2 meters and 440 MHz. It is a 1/4 wave on 2 meters and a 1/2 wave on 440. It can additionally receive these bands: 120, 150, 300, 450, 800 and 900 MHz. As a result of this exceptional coverage, we actually sell more of these antennas to scanner listeners than hams! It is a favorite model for scanner enthusiasts, and for those using the new breed of wideband handheld radios."

 

[Allan_Love_Jr]

I still have mine. And it is one of the best damn Antenna's to date. Especially when monitoring the Rail band. Perfect Antenna.

 

[n5ims]

"The Diamond RH77CA is an HT antenna for transmit on 2 meters and 440 MHz. It is a 1/4 wave on 2 meters and a 1/2 wave on 440. It can additionally receive these bands: 120, 150, 300, 450, 800 and 900 MHz. As a result of this exceptional coverage, we actually sell more of these antennas to scanner listeners than hams! It is a favorite model for scanner enthusiasts, and for those using the new breed of wideband handheld radios."

You're pointing out what the marketing department added after engineering was done. They probably checked with their engineering team and asked if the antenna would pick up a signal on those other bands if it was strong enough and engineering said "Sure, if the signal was strong enough." so marketing added it as a feature. As I like to say "Works on" doesn't equal "Works well on", it simply means it doesn't filter out those signals.

 

[RadioDitch]

Mine works just fine on all bands on my PSR-800, BCD396XT, and BC346XT. No complaints at all. And that's in the mountains of PA...

 

[Ronaldski]

Dont forget those GRE/RS radios do terrible when they get overloaded with too much signal.
Example - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgminOVS2no

 

[n8zcc]

"The Diamond RH77CA is an HT antenna for transmit on 2 meters and 440 MHz. It is a 1/4 wave on 2 meters and a 1/2 wave on 440. It can additionally receive these bands: 120, 150, 300, 450, 800 and 900 MHz. As a result of this exceptional coverage, we actually sell more of these antennas to scanner listeners than hams! It is a favorite model for scanner enthusiasts, and for those using the new breed of wideband handheld radios."

Did you copy this: Diamond RH77CA Amateur HT Antenna

I agree, the RH77 is an outstanding antenna, I use it on my PRO-106 and it does the job.

 

[awattam]

Can somebody please explain this..

Years ago I bought one of those Diamond RH77CA antennas for my PRO-106 scanner. I had to sell the scanner and sold with with what antennas I could find. Last week the kid cleaned out my car and found this antenna under a seat. Using the supplied SMA to BNC adaptor that came with my newer Uniden BCD396xt scanner I put this antenna on the scanner.

So my question is, why does this BNC version of the antenna totally outperform the SMA version that I purchased when I bought the Uniden scanner?

 

[k3cfc]

"The Diamond RH77CA is an HT antenna for transmit on 2 meters and 440 MHz. It is a 1/4 wave on 2 meters and a 1/2 wave on 440. It can additionally receive these bands: 120, 150, 300, 450, 800 and 900 MHz. As a result of this exceptional coverage, we actually sell more of these antennas to scanner listeners than hams! It is a favorite model for scanner enthusiasts, and for those using the new breed of wideband handheld radios."

I have a sportcat scanner and replaced the original telescoping antenna with my 2 meter 440 diamond antenna and i can say what a difference. soooo i am getting another for my scanner.


K3CFC

 

[awattam]

What model number is the 2 meter 440? I am all for getting some specifically tuned antennas as opposed to wide band.

 

[tugbuff]

This antenna is worth its weight in Gold. I just bought two of them. One is on my ICOM W-32A Ham HT. Reception and transmit is fabulous over the factory antenna that came with the radio. The other one, I interchange between my UNIDEN ATLANTIS Marine HT, and my two other scanners. Once again, transmit and receive improved significantly on the Marine HT. If anyone monitors the railroad and marine frequencies on their scanners, this antenna is for you. I Highly recommend it

 

[br0adband]

Since my primary monitoring activity is in the 800-900 MHz range, when I first got back into "hard core scanning" over a decade ago one of the first purchases was that Radio Shack 800 MHz one, and it works very well on VHF and UHF too actually (in my experience, that is - that's the disclaimer). But I did want to get something that was designed for VHF/UHF more specifically so I did a lot of reading, hundreds of posts here at RR and other places online and everything kept pointing to one antenna: the Diamond RH77CA, and I did get one from the AES store here in Las Vegas many years ago and it hasn't disappointed me, ever.

I can't recommend it enough, right next to the Radio Shack 800 MHz actually - trying to listen in with a handheld scanner and not owning at least one of them would be a daunting thing to do in my opinion.

 

[JustLou]

The only people that don't like the RH-77 are people that expect it work great on 800MHz, or purchased a counterfeit on eBay. Otherwise the antenna is a legendary performer on UHF/VHF.

 

[LIScanner101]

Mine is excellent on VHF high and UHF, pretty good on 800Mhz but not very good on VHF low (but I never expected it to be anyway).

 

[nanZor]

In strong signal areas, a paperclip will be a wideband antenna, and anyone can market it as such without worrying about litigation, even though it wasn't *engineered* to do so.

Same thing with the RH77CA on 800 mhz. It is not designed for 800mhz, but in strong signal areas it won't be a problem. Conversely, the RS 800mhz antenna also works at vhf/uhf even though it isn't designed to do so. It is when you get out of the rf-jungle and want decent performance you choose an antenna actually engineered for the job.

 

[Ensnared]

Skewed Data

Diamond RH77CA Product Reviews

32 reviews and almost a perfect score

also those GRE's from what I have learned, are crazy sensitive and may not like too much antenna.

I wonder how many of those reviews were real? I happen to own one of these radio antennas. It has never fit the BNC well. When it sits on my PSR 500, it is really loose. If you are moving with this antenna, you can hear the reception go in and out. Let's just say it is not a tight fit.