Discone Base Antenna

[Cbman417]

What is everyones reviews on the best discone base scanner antenna 150mhz-700xxxx Mhz? 700 mhz is on the phase 25 2 systems. thank you.

 

[prcguy]

The typical scanner Discone like Radio Shack, Diamond, Tram, etc, work great from about VHF air through 500MHz then they point up in the air and loose gain at the horizon in the 700/800 range. You can diplex two antennas together like a Discone for VHF/UHF then a separate gain type 700/800 antenna for the best of everything.

What is everyones reviews on the best discone base scanner antenna 150mhz-700xxxx Mhz? 700 mhz is on the phase 25 2 systems. thank you.

 

[Cbman417]

The typical scanner Discone like Radio Shack, Diamond, Tram, etc, work great from about VHF air through 500MHz then they point up in the air and loose gain at the horizon in the 700/800 range. You can diplex two antennas together like a Discone for VHF/UHF then a separate gain type 700/800 antenna for the best of everything.

are mfj discone antenna good?

 

[prcguy]

In my experience everything MFJ makes is, well, mighty fine junk. The typical scanner Discone is about 30 something inches tall and its the size that determines the frequency range. I mentioned before most scanner types of similar size don't do so well at 700/800MHz but I have a tiny Discone less than a foot tall that works great on 800MHz and I've measured it around 10dB better or 10X better at 800MHz over a larger version. The only problem is the tiny Discone starts working above 300 or 400MHz and its useless at VHF.

For me the best wide band receiving system I could make is with a large and small Discone, filtered, amplified and diplexed together for 100MHz past several GHz continuous coverage.

are mfj discone antenna good?

 

[Ubbe]

All discones perform more or less the same, if they have 8 legs or more and they are at least 25" long. The difference are the build quality, how well they stand up for wind and rain/snow. Placed indoor in the attic it doesn't matter but outdoors you can either get a cheap one and replace it more often or change to another antenna type if you where not satisfied with it, if it's easy to do, or get a more expensive one that will last longer if it's difficult to reach to and work with. To receive well at low-vhf you'll need a discone with a top whip but that will have a narrow frequency range.

/Ubbe