Getting out

[mdel747]

Good afternoon ,

I have a few questions before i invest in any thing
i was thinking of possibly getting a scanner and possibly move to ham later ,

the problem i think i may have is getting out ,
I live SW Wisconsin and its very hilly and i live at the bottom of a sharp valley ,

there was once a antenna on top of the hill it still has i believe a RG-500 (alum , trunk cable ) running up there
from the house to the old antenna spot is close to 300 yards ,

so the question is,,,, will that work using the old cable ? assuming its not cut any place , i know i will have to replace the fittings back to good copper , but how much power will i need to push it that far to the antenna to use with ham , once i get a tower

and will it work for a scanner antenna or a combination of both ?
topo so you can kind of see where it runs , red dots = cable
green deer stands ( don't mind them ) old topo
so what are my options here ?


thanks mdel747

 

[qlajlu]

I think you might be more apt to get a decent answer for this question in the Antennas / Coax Forum. You might give that a try. Follow the link or scroll down to Topic Specific Forums on the main forums page.

By the way, welcome to RR.com.

 

[mdel747]

ok thank you i will move it over there

 

[scannerfreak]

I went ahead and moved it since the OP didn't seem to mind..We'd rather these be moved vs creating a new thread on the same topic in a different forum You can request a thread move by reporting the thread to the staff. Thanks!

 

[mdel747]

thank you sir

 

[scannerfreak]

thank you sir

You are quite welcome and welcome to RR

 

[DPD1]

500 is 75 Ohm, so for transmitting that would probably cause some issues. Assuming it hasn't been ruined, you could probably still use it for receive. You don't have a lot to lose by just putting new connectors on and giving it a shot, if you can at least just test the basic continuity first. Running a new line is going to be expensive. Lets say you even just used a typical good RG8 size... That would be about $700 by the time you add shipping. Unless my math is bad, that would have about 14 dB loss at that length for VHF. Even doubling your cable cost would probably only lower that 3-4 dB. So it really comes down to how much damage those hills do. You might be better off having a tower at the house, even if it doesn't go as high as the hills. Or you might even do OK just on the roof. You never know.

 

[mdel747]

i know cell phones will not work until some one gets to the top thats why i don't have one , unless i could put it on the tower on top also ,,

the back hill starts 25 yards behind the house and up the front side is about 75 yards , it would take 150 foot tower to get close to the top ,

might just need a hand held and the 4wheeler lol
the back valley is 3/4 mile to the upper field up hill

i need satellite just for Internet and tv here

 

[DPD1]

As far as ham goes... If there's power up there, you could always just run a remote.

 

[mdel747]

As far as ham goes... If there's power up there, you could always just run a remote.

nope no power solar or reindeer on a treadmill

how about just a normal scanner and hook it up to the rg500 to the top with a antenna , i could just mount it to a old oak up there with out a tower ,

 

[prcguy]

If your not close to any other towers, paging sites, cell sites, etc you could put a nice scanner antenna at the top of the hill with a remote preamp right at the antenna (powered up the cable) and use your 300yds of cable. Depending on the preamp your reception could be similar to living on top of the hill with the scanner at the base of the antenna.

For most people a wide band preamp at the antenna will cause more harm than good due to a large spectrum of high level signals running the preamp into overload but you might just get away with it.
prcguy

 

[mdel747]

well i could get a old scanner off ebay and buy the good antenna just to try it out

do you have recommendations on a preamp antenna