DJ-X11

[N8IAA]

Just purchased a DJ-X11 for airband (VHF/UHF) and wondered what antennas are out there to use. I do have a Diamond SRH-77CA, Austin Condor, and various ham and scanner antennas collected over the years. Right now, I have a RS telescoping center load on a magmount running to the radio. Are there any better suggestions?
TIA,
Larry

 

[questnz]

Larry, I been using Watson 901 for Air-band, very happy with performance on Air-band frequencies.
http://www.scannermaster.com/SearchResults.asp?searching=Y&sort=13&search=901%20&show=20&page=1
You will need SMA - BNC adapter, W 901 comes with BNC connector

Chris

 

[N8IAA]

I do have a 801, and it works quite well. Will have to get a 901 for comparison. Thanks.
Now, to hijack my own post, has anyone come up with a better belt clip than that floppy thing Alinco calls a belt clip? I tried my 396XT button, and the screw is the correct size. I would just have to file down the two nubs on the back of the black plastic piece. Now I just need to get another for the 11, or find another of my many radios that I can snag a similar clip from.
Larry

 

[nanZor]

Right now, I have a RS telescoping center load on a magmount running to the radio. Are there any better suggestions?

The RS center-loaded telescopic will be the better bet for civil-air. Note that while the instructions indicate that you should just fully extend it for that band, it is operating on the 3rd harmonic (fully extended the coil drops the resonant freq down to about 45 mhz) through the coil.

A noticeable improvement on civil airband can be made by shorting out the coil, (just move the element just above the coil down a bit until you feel a slight bit of resistance - maybe an inch or so), and then readjust the overall length of the whip for about 23-24 inches long total to make basically a bare coil-less quarter wave out of it.

I don't know how good your groundplane is, but it sounds like you are using the mag-mount on something stationary. Another option if you are using the typical mag-mount with very small gauge transmission line, like RG-174 would be to try to choke the common-mode of the feedline. You can do this with a RS #273-105 snap-on choke right near the mag-mount feedpoint. With very thin coax, you could wrap quite a few turns around the choke. This ferrite is #43 material, good for vhf.

 

[N8IAA]

Magmount is a Larsen BNC mount (RG58 to a male BNC). It's on a four drawer file cabinet. It is my multi-use antenna ground plane Have it set up now with a tri-band Maldol 50/145/440MHz mobile antenna on a Larsen NMO to BNC mount. Working great on the VHF airband. Haven't been home to try it during the day on milair. I've waited two years to purchase this radio, and am very happy I did. The RS antenna now feeds my 125. Will be upgrading my antenna to an Arrow dual band yagi for milair and civil air. Got a camera tripod at a garage sale waiting to hold the new antenna. Will let ya'll know how it works. Will also be setting up a Diamond multiband HF-UHF antenna on a Larsen groundplane base. It used to work great back in Ohio on my 2006.
L8ter,
Larry