Effectiveness of a MultiCoupler?

[Renegade631]

I've been browsing this section and the Mobile/Shack photos sections planning some installations both at home and in my vehicle.

Some people have multiple antennas, some people have a multicoupler and a single antenna, some people have a combination...

What should I take into consideration when I plan which to use?

I don't like the idea of having a lot of antennas because I feel like it looks suspicious, and if one antenna would work for multiple radios, perhaps I could spend more on one really good antenna for my house and one for my car.

 

[commscanaus]

It can be very difficult to give specific suggestions due to the large number of variables that such installations involve.

If you have multiple receivers- then ideally a separate antenna for each is what you want- especially if each receiver is to cover a specific band or channel.
This is not really practical unless you have the real estate and forgiving neighbors.

Consideration must be given to what you are planning to listen to, what the overall signal strengths are at your location (desired and undesired) and the RF bands you wish to cover.

For many years now, I have had great success with a HAM 146/440 Dual band co-linear fed to the receivers via either a duplexer (separates the VHF and UHF into 2 feeds) or a Stridsberg MCA204M active multicoupler for 4 feeds of combined VHF/UHF. Most of my listening takes place at or around the HAM bands.

800Mhz is also of interest- but my line of sight proximity to the trunking sites gives sufficient signal saturation that removes the need for a specific 800Mhz antenna. The HAM co-linear picks them up just fine.

I also use a Diamond D130 discone for airband use- and like the HAM stick- can be fed through the multicoupler to multiple radio's.

The only issue I have had concerning the use of an active multicoupler- that is one which has amplification circuitry to compensate for the splitting loss- has been strong signal overload and bleedover from adjacent strong signals that the multicoupler has helped cause.
Remove the multicoupler- and the problem goes away. So an active unit might not be such a good idea if you are close to strong RF. A passive unit is cheaper too.

Also over the years I have used TV splitters successfully. These are dirt cheap and available at any consumer electronics outlet. F connector splitters can be quite adequate for receive only applications.

Apart from raising the anger of the neighbors with heaps of antenna's (and the security issue of antenna's advertising to the street that you have heaps of nice toys)- trying to cram multiple runs of cable through walls, roofs etc...can be a real pain in the neck.

Problem is- most people do not want to be living next door to what could be perceived as a "Secret Service Base" so I adopt the minimalist approach.
When asked by a neighbor what the antenna is for- I told them it was for Wireless Internet!

One day when I move onto 20+ acres- up go the 6 towers, yagis, monopoles, log periodics etc....and throw caution to the wind!

Regards, Commscanaus

 

[Renegade631]

Many thanks for the detailed response!

I listen to 800MHz and 400MHz ranges on my scanner, I want to get another scanner or two so I stop missing traffic on one station in favor of another.

I also have a CB which I don't use pretty much at all, but sometimes I think it would be cool to try and get some range out of it and prove it isn't completely useless.

I'm looking into joining a local group I found through the ARRL site, and becoming a Ham, and I honestly don't have the first clue what I will be listening to or sending on when I do.

I'm a communications junky, I have 5 computers in my house (Workstations in two rooms, 2 laptops, and a linux server), I want to install one laptop in the car. I have like 20 cell phones, 6 active on 5 different networks. And I'm sort of a nutcase perhaps in that "Preparing for the end of the world as we know it" sense. So Radio is obviously the best means of communication in that event.