Hays County - Antenna "Tunning"

[chadbyoung]

I purchased the Radioshack 20-176 and have it hanging in the attick - it seems to work fine. Now that the antenna is up, I want to make sure that I have it tuned for the frequencies that want to listen to. The Fire/Med/Police use a 900MHz system (935~939MHz) and while I can hear most of the transmissions I still recieve some static. Any suggestions on how to "tune" this antenna?

 

[loumaag]

That antenna is a great VHF/UHF antenna and performs much like the RS site says: "Covers 108-1300MHz with peak performance occurring in the 152-470MHz range. " It is not designed to be "tuned". If you start messing with the lengths it will lose its VHF/UHF capabilities.

Now, as for listening to the 900MHz range, your static is probably due to your antenna coax run. Take a look at some of the posts in the Antenna Forum and you will see that when you get above the 450 MHz range, the most important part of the antenna system becomes the coax. You might get better results from a RS 800 MHz rubber duck on the scanner than you do from the antenna in the attic.