Got my Discone 3000N

[Jondrew55]

My Discone 3000N arrived today and I assembled it and mounted it on an unused photo tripod. My HOA does not allow any sort of antenna (although I had a Starlink dishy mounted in my back yard for a while and no one complained.

Right now the antenna is sitting in my upstairs bonus room near a window. The intent was to put it up in the attic eventually. It's actually smaller than I thought it would be, and since this is more or less of a storage area I'll probably leave it here instead of going thru the hassle of the attic. I can already tell I'm pulling in more channels. On the aviation bands, I can get Orlando International, Orlando Sanford International and Orlando Executive airports. I'm able to reach more public school radios, albeit faintly. No luck with any railroad traffic yet.

I'll bet I could mount it on the roof of the house in the back, and no one would see it or care. But I'd need 75 to 100 feet of cable for that. Plus, I'm too old to do roofs anymore. Just as an experiment, I may figure out how to get the antenna up out one of my 2nd floor windows on 20' of PVC pipe. It would only be temporary, but it would be interesting to see how much better things are with it mounted outdoors. I could also take the tripod mount out in the back yard and see how that works from ground level.

One thing I do notice is the RSSI does not seem much better with this new antenna. I log my sessions on Proscan and most of the RSSI numbers are anywhere between -120 and -60 at best. That does not seem obviously better than what I was getting with the RH77CA, but I am getting more channels.

 

[Alain]

You might try to mount your discone on an exrendable painters pole, or the like. After sunset, boost that pole up and give a listen. See what happens.

 

[devicelab]

It'll make a HUGE difference to get it outside. No debate there. HOA's suck.

I'd use EMT conduit. A 10ft section is cheap. Use a 1" piece.

Did I mention that HOA's suck?

 

[jtwalker]

Use it for your tv antenna to get those occasional football games not covered by your local affiliates. HOA can’t do anything about a TV antenna.

In case you don’t believe me, you can look it up for yourself:
There is an actual rule of law (the OTARD law) that prohibits HOAs from disallowing the installation and use of antennas!

 

[Brales60]

My neighbors think mine is TV. A HOA, but not terrible sticklers.

 

[Ubbe]

One thing I do notice is the RSSI does not seem much better with this new antenna. I log my sessions on Proscan and most of the RSSI numbers are anywhere between -120 and -60 at best. That does not seem obviously better than what I was getting with the RH77CA, but I am getting more channels.

It's difficult using RSSI values to evaluate antennas. It will also depend on the scanner/receiver used, which some show the sum of signals from many adjacent channels and not only from the one you are monitoring. A SDS100/200 are reacting to signals within a 10MHz wide window. Trying to get as high RSSI level as possible might just be that you add more interference to your signal reception. Only good way to do it are to use bit error on a digital signal to see if the signal quality improves.

/Ubbe

 

[Jondrew55]

My neighbors think mine is TV. A HOA, but not terrible sticklers.

Mine isn’t horrible either. I have an idea where to place mine on the roof, but I’d need about 100’ of cable to get it to a place I can access it. Usually they don’t bother with stuff that you can’t see from the street.