Dual band vs multiband antenna

[tscoma]

I bought a Diamond RHC77CA antenna listed as 120-900mhz for my Whistler WS1080. I bought a cheap import on eBay that was shown to be the same size and multiband range. What was sent from eBay was a Similar looking 16" whip, Nagoya NA-771 dual band 144/430mhz antenna.

As a newb, will this truly be a difference on my receive capabilities for the higher bands between 430-900mhz? Should I request that the correct multiband antenna be sent because there will be a difference or not? Also, the eBay dual band fits onto the BNC connector but it's much tighter than the Diamond.

 

[DJ11DLN]

The RH77ca is a dual-band antenna for 2M and 440 (70CM). It will be resonant for transmit on these bands. Receive-only is a different story; they are widely used on scanners because they work well for everything from Civil Air through UHF-T, and work reasonably well on 700/800/900 MHz, even though they're not specifically designed for most of that. The Nagoya antenna you describe should have similar capabilities.

There have been some mixed reviews on the Nagoya antennas. I'd give it a try for a couple of weeks and see if it meets your needs. A genuine Diamond may or may not perform better. Or if you just want the "real deal," send it back and get an RH77ca. They're not expensive.

 

[Roodog2k]

I have that diamond antenna for both my scanner and HT. I absolutely wouldn't try transmitting on an antenna purchased off ebay. But, for rx-only? Worst case is bad receive.

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[tscoma]

The RH77ca is a dual-band antenna for 2M and 440 (70CM). It will be resonant for transmit on these bands. Receive-only is a different story; they are widely used on scanners because they work well for everything from Civil Air through UHF-T, and work reasonably well on 700/800/900 MHz, even though they're not specifically designed for most of that. The Nagoya antenna you describe should have similar capabilities.

There have been some mixed reviews on the Nagoya antennas. I'd give it a try for a couple of weeks and see if it meets your needs. A genuine Diamond may or may not perform better. Or if you just want the "real deal," send it back and get an RH77ca. They're not expensive.

Interesting. I'm just going off of the Diamond packaging but it lists 120/150/300/450/800/900 MHz bands for receive. I'm mostly listening to phase 1 and 2 law chat. I think the Diamond cost me around $25-30. The eBay specials were $11 each. Does this Nagoya still cover 700-900, even though it's not listed?

 

[rbrtklamp2]

A good old VHF whip will work good for monitoring trunking in the 700/800 band probably 900 to. Another great antenna I found reasonably priced was the spectrum force multi band antenna available from scanner master here:
http://www.scannermaster.com/Wideband_Antenna_with_Mag_Mount_and_BNC_p/01-541326.htm
If you are looking for something for a portable the Watson 801 antenna is amazing across all bands or you could go for the Watson super gain antenna although it's about a 15 inches long it works great. Really at the end of the day it's all about personal preference and what works best in your area unfortunately you may have to do some experimenting with different antennas until you find what works best for you.


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[n5ims]

Interesting. I'm just going off of the Diamond packaging but it lists 120/150/300/450/800/900 MHz bands for receive. I'm mostly listening to phase 1 and 2 law chat. I think the Diamond cost me around $25-30. The eBay specials were $11 each. Does this Nagoya still cover 700-900, even though it's not listed?

"It slices. It dices. It's the one tool that will replace everything else in your kitchen." Just like those TV adds for those all-in-one kitchen devices, it probably will do everything that all of those special purpose devices do, the question is just how well will they do it. I have both the RH77 and the RS 800 MHz antenna and there's a real difference in performance. The RH77 will pick up the 800 MHz systems that have very strong signals and the RS 800 MHz antenna will pick up the strong VHF and UHF signals. The difference is on the weaker signal systems, and this is where the antenna designed for the associated band really stands out.

If you want an antenna that will really work on a band (or bands), get one that's designed specifically for that band (or bands). The easiest way to tell is to see if the antenna is designed for transmitting on them. This is where the engineer has specifically designed the antenna to work. If the packaging or literature states "also works on ..." or something similar, you can be sure that isn't from the engineer but instead is from the marketing department that doesn't really care about how well it works on those bands, just that folks may purchase the antenna if they think it will work there. Remember that "works" and "works well" are two very different things.

 

[tscoma]

"It slices. It dices. It's the one tool that will replace everything else in your kitchen." Just like those TV adds for those all-in-one kitchen devices, it probably will do everything that all of those special purpose devices do, the question is just how well will they do it. I have both the RH77 and the RS 800 MHz antenna and there's a real difference in performance. The RH77 will pick up the 800 MHz systems that have very strong signals and the RS 800 MHz antenna will pick up the strong VHF and UHF signals. The difference is on the weaker signal systems, and this is where the antenna designed for the associated band really stands out.

If you want an antenna that will really work on a band (or bands), get one that's designed specifically for that band (or bands). The easiest way to tell is to see if the antenna is designed for transmitting on them. This is where the engineer has specifically designed the antenna to work. If the packaging or literature states "also works on ..." or something similar, you can be sure that isn't from the engineer but instead is from the marketing department that doesn't really care about how well it works on those bands, just that folks may purchase the antenna if they think it will work there. Remember that "works" and "works well" are two very different things.

Point taken... the stock rubber duck does a semi decent job mostly. I do get a fair share of digitizing/garbling so just looking to make an improvement over stock. My current dabbling is using ezscan to add dmr and ham automatically to my scanner but have yet to catch anything but silence. I wasn't sure if it was me or the antenna.