Freq 151-159

[L8rGator]

I'm pretty much a newbie. Can you give me suggestions on what all I need for an antenna setup?

I have 2 rtl-sdr dongles that work great for local.

I would like to add two for the next county over, but the signal is not strong enough on my cheap indoor little antennas.

I think I'm looking to do eave mount, receiving 154, 159 police scanner signals. Maybe 151. The first two signals are about 25 to 30 miles away. Not sure if there are any hills in the way.

I think I need antenna (which are good options?) , a mast, a mount, splitter, some kind of ground?, and some kind of coax?

Thanks!

 

[UTE-GE]

As for antenna....

OmniX Scanner Base Antenna

Specs Gain: 3 VHF 4 UHF dBi Pattern: Omni-directional Wavelength: 1/2 Elements: 3 Tuned: 118-137, 148-175 & 225-900 MHz Band: UHF & VHF Connector: N Female Cable: RG8X Cable Length: 16 Inches Height: 45" Width: 30" Weight: 2 lb Features Multi Band-Wide Coverage: The uniquely...

dpdproductions.com

Coax is dependent on length you will be using.

Splitter...

2 Ways Power Splitter, 1 - 750 MHz, 50Ω | ZFSC-2-1W+ | Mini-Circuits

Mini-Circuits is a global leader in the design and manufacturing of RF, IF, and microwave components from DC to 86GHz.

www.minicircuits.com

 

[mmckenna]

I think I'm looking to do eave mount, receiving 154, 159 police scanner signals. Maybe 151. The first two signals are about 25 to 30 miles away. Not sure if there are any hills in the way.

I think I need antenna (which are good options?) , a mast, a mount, splitter, some kind of ground?, and some kind of coax?

Band specific antennas are a good thing. Since you are just receiving, purchasing one VHF base antenna with some gain will help performance.

Whether or not you can receive from the adjacent county is something you'll need to figure out. Hills in the way may block the signal and no amount of antenna may fix that.
The type of antenna will depend on YOUR budget. There's some good inexpensive options if you shop around. Even something like a used marine VHF antenna can work very well as they are tuned for that part of the VHF band.

Couple of things:

Antenna height helps. Get the antenna up as high as you safely can.
Good coax gets more of that signal to your radio. The type of coax you need will depend on how long the run is, how easy it is to route, and what your budget it.
Mast will depend on where/how you are going to mount it.
Active splitters will help performance by overcoming splitter losses. Stridesberg seem to be well respected in the hobby community. Multicouplers

Grounding is require per National Electric Code, and it's just an all around good idea. This is a complex subject and doesn't involve easy answers or cheap products you buy off Amazon.
At minimum, you need to have your antenna mast grounded. There should be a ground rod near the homes electrical entrance panel. You can use that. If that's not in the right location for your antenna, then there's some work involved that would require adding new ground rods, and tying them all together.
You want a lightning protection device, like a PolyPhaser, where the coax enters your home.
You'd want the PolyPhaser grounded to the rod. Also a good idea to ground the multicoupler and your radios.

 

[Ubbe]

A good antenna for directional use for that other county could be a Sirio WY-140-3N

A more narrow beam higher gain antenna could be the Sirio WY140-6N and will depend of how wide angled you'll need it to be.

You can use RG6 coax that at VHF frequencies has literally no attenuation.
You can use something like an Electroline EDA 2400 to split the signal to several receivers.

/Ubbe

 

[L8rGator]

Band specific antennas are a good thing. Since you are just receiving, purchasing one VHF base antenna with some gain will help performance.

Whether or not you can receive from the adjacent county is something you'll need to figure out. Hills in the way may block the signal and no amount of antenna may fix that.
The type of antenna will depend on YOUR budget. There's some good inexpensive options if you shop around. Even something like a used marine VHF antenna can work very well as they are tuned for that part of the VHF band.

Couple of things:

Antenna height helps. Get the antenna up as high as you safely can.
Good coax gets more of that signal to your radio. The type of coax you need will depend on how long the run is, how easy it is to route, and what your budget it.
Mast will depend on where/how you are going to mount it.
Active splitters will help performance by overcoming splitter losses. Stridesberg seem to be well respected in the hobby community. Multicouplers

Grounding is require per National Electric Code, and it's just an all around good idea. This is a complex subject and doesn't involve easy answers or cheap products you buy off Amazon.
At minimum, you need to have your antenna mast grounded. There should be a ground rod near the homes electrical entrance panel. You can use that. If that's not in the right location for your antenna, then there's some work involved that would require adding new ground rods, and tying them all together.
You want a lightning protection device, like a PolyPhaser, where the coax enters your home.
You'd want the PolyPhaser grounded to the rod. Also a good idea to ground the multicoupler and your radios.

Ty!!