Airdorn
Member
Hey all.
I had a very productive weekend!
I went by the office and grabbed some RG-6U coax and a spare mag-mount 800Mhz antenna. I work for an alarm company as a tech and we used to use them with these older cellular alarm transmitters when we had signal problems with the stock stick antenna.
Anyway, I mounted the antenna on top of the furnace ventilation pipe on my roof and ran the cable into the attic.
Inside the attic, I cut off the antenna's wire and soldered the RG-6U to it, as seen in the picture. The braided shields of both are soldered, as are the center taps.
Then I ran the RG-6U straight to my radio room, down the wall, and into my scanner.
I had been using another antenna just like this one, but it was a little bit lower on the roof, and I used all of its cable that came with it, and then used a barrel connector to splice some RG-58 to it and then to the scanner. (ick!)
What a difference this project made!
Before, I was getting 2-3 bars on the S-meter of my BCD996T, monitoring a public safety Motorola type II system about 35 miles away.
Now, with this new setup using the RG-6U and that soldered splice, I get a steady 4-5 bars and the audio is much clearer and consistent.
Total run from antenna to scanner is about 35 feet.
So what about that splice shown in the picture? I know its ugly, but isn't a soldered connection always going to be better than using adapters and connectors and what not? I know a single continuous wire is the ultimate, but that's not possible here. That antenna had that thinner, cheaper coax built right into it.
Any ideas on improving this setup?
Thanks
Airdorn
I had a very productive weekend!
I went by the office and grabbed some RG-6U coax and a spare mag-mount 800Mhz antenna. I work for an alarm company as a tech and we used to use them with these older cellular alarm transmitters when we had signal problems with the stock stick antenna.
Anyway, I mounted the antenna on top of the furnace ventilation pipe on my roof and ran the cable into the attic.
Inside the attic, I cut off the antenna's wire and soldered the RG-6U to it, as seen in the picture. The braided shields of both are soldered, as are the center taps.
Then I ran the RG-6U straight to my radio room, down the wall, and into my scanner.
I had been using another antenna just like this one, but it was a little bit lower on the roof, and I used all of its cable that came with it, and then used a barrel connector to splice some RG-58 to it and then to the scanner. (ick!)
What a difference this project made!
Before, I was getting 2-3 bars on the S-meter of my BCD996T, monitoring a public safety Motorola type II system about 35 miles away.
Now, with this new setup using the RG-6U and that soldered splice, I get a steady 4-5 bars and the audio is much clearer and consistent.
Total run from antenna to scanner is about 35 feet.
So what about that splice shown in the picture? I know its ugly, but isn't a soldered connection always going to be better than using adapters and connectors and what not? I know a single continuous wire is the ultimate, but that's not possible here. That antenna had that thinner, cheaper coax built right into it.
Any ideas on improving this setup?
Thanks
Airdorn