good A.M recievable antenna's

[mainetrunk]

I was wonderring, is there a better antenna for A.M reception than the ferret? It's great with A.M on my bct15x..

 

[ka3jjz]

You're mixing modes and antennas. For most scanning situations - there are specialized exceptions, usually for the ham, military or commercial market - there's not much difference.

Are you looking for an antenna that cover a wide range of frequencies? Antennas like a discone do, but as is the case with most wideband antennas, they fall short in some ranges. There's no way to expect the same frequency response over a wide frequency range - say 25 to 900 Mhz. It's just not possible from a physics point of view.

There are more specialized antennas for aircraft, but usually that comes with a sacrifice in performance in other bands. However, you might want to look at the DPD Productions website - they've got some reportedly excellent antennas you should consider. I've never tried one - being a condo dweller and a ham is a real pain in the arse - but all the reports I've seen on them have been very positive.

Mike

 

[mainetrunk]

Thx, wanted to get a good reception for A.M only if that the real way to go. Mount it topside, run LMR 400 to bnc to plug into scanner when in the mood. Otherwise it will hang and wait for usage. Depends on my scanning mood. Right now-I'm doing mil-air and a few vfh locals. The ferret does good, but the groung/tower guys are scratchy. I can hear a plane far off. Just hardly any ground.

 

[ridgescan]

I get a ton of MW with my wire on the roof. (read my sig)
Try deploying a wire. 50 ohm coax feed, good short ground near antenna, good short ground inside at radio. I have the CCrane twin coil ferrite out in the livingroom and the roof antenna naturally pulls in much more.
EDIT I think I screwed up in here sorry.
Far as your not getting ground etc-try an FM trap at radio in feedline. It will open up your AM airband a lot. Look in here
http://forums.radioreference.com/passive-devices/233023-fm-trap-airband.html

 

[majoco]

I don't quite understand - what is it you are trying to listen to? You posted in the aircraft forum, yet talk about AM - do you mean the AM broadcast band or just because the aircraft frequencies are AM? The antenna doesn't know or care what variety of modulation - just the frequency. I guess you mean that you are using an Austin Ferret broadband antenna which should be good for 25 to 1500MHz. If you want better than this, you should buy an antenna that is suitable (tuned) for the aircraft band (118 to 136MHz) and if you are a long way from the ground station you may need to buy a yagi 'gain' antenna. The tower and ground control transmitter don't put out a lot of power but as the aircraft are always direct line of sight they will pick up the signal - you may not.

 

[LtDoc]

Antennas are frequency sensitive, not mode sensitive. They don't know if it's AM, FM, or a car horn. I would select an antenna that's designed to receive on the frequencies you are interested in hearing.
As with any antenna, higher is better until it get's impractical or ridiculous. And for receiving only, almost anything will work to some extent. That idea of a plain old wire over the roof is much more practical than people may think. Not 'fool-proof' by any means but certainly usable. If it will conduct electricity it can be used for an antenna, or part of an antenna. Leave the power lines alone though...
- 'Doc

 

[ka3jjz]

Unless you're pretty close - say within a mile or two - it may be very difficult to hear the tower or ground ops. Their operations usually use simple ground plane or similar antennas with relatively low power (and in the case of ground operations, low height), so that's going to limit coverage (dependent on the terrain between you and the airport, your receive antenna's height above ground, and several other factors).

A beam would help somewhat - and the aforementioned DPD Productions website has such a beast. But you will need to get it up there to get that kind of coverage...Mike

 

[mainetrunk]

I was going for aircraft, figured they're all A.M... I want the best reception to where I never have to get bett-get the best.

 

[mainetrunk]

How can I put this? My ferret to my 15x has a unident external speaker. Planes that are within 50 miles give me a very clear signal. Just not the airports,can hear pease-relatively well, on the ferret.. I want to do the same for my pro197. I got the speaker, but using a marine vhf. It's ok, but gets noise from every direction around me. Especilly on those unicom freqs. Thx

 

[ridgescan]

Did you bother reading the FM trap thread? It is possible that you're being squished and that $7 trap just may free up the 108-136 band using your existing antenna. Read the 1st post in there. Sounds familiar?