Discone Question

Status
Not open for further replies.

N1SQB

Member
Premium Subscriber
Joined
Jan 25, 2003
Messages
2,733
Location
Somewhere On Earth
Never heard of it!

However the specs do look good. This thing is HUGE! 55" center radial? Oh Yeah! I may just get one myself! I look at it like this, it has to be better than the rat shack one which is cheaply constructed. The rat shack one is $72 plus tax. I would definitely go for it.

Did you see this one? Not as attractive but smaller and lower in price.....

http://cgi.ebay.com/TRAM-1410-Disco...Z4672QQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp1742.m153.l1262

Manny
 
Last edited:

Turbo68

Member
Joined
Dec 12, 2005
Messages
878
Location
East Devonport,Tasmania,Australia
I got 2 Icom-AH7000 Discones and they do an excellent job on the vhf/uhf bands & they do cost more than other discones but u get 50 feet of 5D-2V low loss thick cable from japan and 2 N type connectors.

Regards Lino.
 

CYUL

Member
Premium Subscriber
Joined
Jul 8, 2008
Messages
631
Location
Montreal, Canada
I bought an AH7000 in the late 80's when they were first introduced. Paid $150.00 CAD. It is a solid performer. Still have it after 20 years. It survived many nasty Canadian winters and the ice storm of 1998. Worth every penny.

Paul
 

SAR923

Active Member
Joined
Dec 19, 2002
Messages
1,514
How can a true discone have any gain, especially 7db, as claimed by Workman?
 

JayMojave

Member
Joined
Dec 13, 2007
Messages
722
Location
Mojave Ca
Hello Osoklrs:

The Discones antennas work very well, covering the area of frequencies you mentioned. They also work well for transmitting.

Jay in the Mojave
 

KC0QNB

Member
Joined
Nov 4, 2007
Messages
730
Location
Gothenburg, NE
How can a true discone have any gain, especially 7db, as claimed by Workman?
None that I found so far, Osoklrs, Workman sells a lot of stuff for the low end CB/scanner market, not goods quality items, buy it if you wish, but I wouldn't.
Ryan
 

scrotumola

Member
Joined
Jan 19, 2001
Messages
325
Location
So. Texas
I've got a Tram-1411/Workman 734(?) feeding LMR-400 at the 42' level and a Scantenna ST-2 below it at 36' also feeding LMR-400 and the Scantenna works just a hair better than the Tram with the exception of signals whose source is in the direction obstructed by the mast. The mast creates a shadow and I've seen, depending on the source and signal intensity, anywhere from 2-5 S units difference.

Hope this helps.
 

xiao

Member
Joined
Jul 27, 2008
Messages
7
I was wondering (and i know this sounds noobish) if a discone inside a loft space would perform as well or as close to if it was outside on the roof? Never been sure weither to go through the trouble of just putting it in the loft space since the roof is a bit hard to get on. Thanks in advance for any suggestions.
 

SAR923

Active Member
Joined
Dec 19, 2002
Messages
1,514
Assuming the roof is normal shingles or tar and gravel and there's no foil backed insulation running in the roof rafters, mounting an antenna in an attic or loft will work just fine. My scanner and shortwave antennas are mounted in my attic, which is about 20 feet above ground level. I have no way of estimating the difference in reception if I had them mounted on top of the roof but I think it's very small. Certainly it will be a huge improvement over a rubber duck.
 

xiao

Member
Joined
Jul 27, 2008
Messages
7
Assuming the roof is normal shingles or tar and gravel and there's no foil backed insulation running in the roof rafters, mounting an antenna in an attic or loft will work just fine. My scanner and shortwave antennas are mounted in my attic, which is about 20 feet above ground level. I have no way of estimating the difference in reception if I had them mounted on top of the roof but I think it's very small. Certainly it will be a huge improvement over a rubber duck.

Cool, sounds good. It's just ~alot~ less hassle for me to stick it in the loft space, and the roof is your basic tiles/shingles roof, no foil insulation or anything so i'm hoping it'll work just as well. Thanks for the reply and help, much appreciated.

Also, if there is anybody out there who's tried both inside a roof space and ontop of the actual roof, has it made a noticeable difference?
 

kb2vxa

Completely Banned for the Greater Good
Banned
Joined
Mar 22, 2005
Messages
6,100
Location
Point Pleasant Beach, N.J.
OK guys here's the skinny, I installed the larger one for a friend and ran it through it's paces with an antenna analyzer. I found that the long adjustable radials when tuned (using an SWR meter for you CBers out there) near their full length resonated fairly well for using it on CB but it was a POS on VHF low band which was it's intended purpose. When those radials were fully retracted it resonated there perfectly. That adjustment BTW had no effect on other resonances for the higher frequency ham bands and no effect on scanner receive except for VHF low.

The smaller one is a pretty much run of the mill discone which is a POS on VHF low but resonates fairly well on the ham bands above 144MHz. Other than low band it makes a pretty good scanner antenna but like them all stinks on 800Mhz. The choice is clear, the big one for CB or low band and general scanning or the small one if you don't listen to CB or low band.

Final note and I can't stress this enough, for 800MHz nothing beats a dedicated 800MHz antenna, accept no substitutes. Do we have to go through the coax issue AGAIN? (;->)

"Also, if there is anybody out there who's tried both inside a roof space and on top of the actual roof, has it made a noticeable difference?"

Yes; noticeable but not critical, you could do a lot worse.
 

donc13

Member
Premium Subscriber
Joined
Dec 19, 2002
Messages
1,353
Location
Grand Junction, CO
However the specs do look good. This thing is HUGE! 55" center radial? Oh Yeah! I may just get one myself! I look at it like this, it has to be better than the rat shack one which is cheaply constructed. The rat shack one is $72 plus tax. I would definitely go for it.

Did you see this one? Not as attractive but smaller and lower in price.....

http://cgi.ebay.com/TRAM-1410-Disco...Z4672QQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp1742.m153.l1262

Manny

I've got one of the Radio Shack discones that I use. It's 11 years old, but I doubt they've changed any in the last 11 years. It sits in my attic and is GREAT for my scanner. I have no problems on any band receiving things I should be expected to receive (line of sight, etc.) and even have reception on systems I wouldn't think I could receive (I sit in a valley where I'm shadowed from the repeater sites by about a mile of ridgeline). For example....(I'm a retired cop)...my handheld 800MHz police radio pretty much wouldn't receive anything when I was at home. My scanner, receives the repeater signal just fine when hooked to the discone (with 50' of coax between the antenna and radio). I could be on the 2nd floor of my house and the "professional" radio would only occasionaly crackle. The discone was sitting a top the ceiling (in the attic) worked better.

I can only talk about my experience with a now 11 year old Radio Shack....but it works just fine for me.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top