Help getting good Air

[tipster67]

Using the RS Pro-163. With the following antenna:
OUR JUMBO SNOOP DADDY SCANNER ANTENNA FITS UNIDEN +*ALL - eBay (item 370307676540 end time Dec-24-09 19:00:56 PST)
I have tried with both attenuation on and off. I am 4.0 miles from the airport as the crow fly's. Everything here is flat (Wichita, KS). The antenna is in a window about 6 feet up. And yes that window faces the airport. I can barely pick up anything. When and if I do. I can hardly hear what is being said. Very staticy and sounds very distant. Looking for any suggestions to improve reception. Here are my frequencies and current settings:

Freq: Rx Mode: CT/DC:
118.200000 FM 0.0
121.900000 FM 0.0
125.500000 FM 0.0
126.700000 FM 0.0
134.850000 FM 0.0
125.700000 FM 0.0
125.150000 FM 0.0
257.800000 FM 0.0
348.600000 FM 0.0
269.100000 FM 0.0
325.800000 FM 0.0
353.500000 FM 0.0
385.550000 FM 0.0
327.100000 FM 0.0

Hope this is enough info to help...

 

[mancow]

....quite enough info.

You have it in FM mode. Aircraft frequencies need to be AM.

 

[n0lqt]

Also make sure the tube portion of the antenna is vertical, not horizontal. I've seen several people lay these antennas on the middle divide of double hung window. Laying it on its side loses about 70% of the signal right off the bat. And the higher you can get it, the better. At six feet AGL, you only got about six to seven miles VHF Line Of Sight for on-the-ground aircraft (figure about 25 miles for Public Safety Comm). Put that same antenna at the peak of your roof and you get almost half again as much distance. I have multiple antennas for different purposes. All the way from a unity gain J-pole about 3 feet above the peak of my roof, to a 4 element vertcal beam and Discone at 40 feet to a 4 section - half wave colinar vertical fed with 5/8 inch hardline at 92 feet on the tower. The J-pole is great for aircraft since airborne aircraft are essentially a transmitter on a 30,000 tall tower which gives them almost a 250 mile VHF-los no matter where your antenna is. From the high antenna, I can hear input frequencies 20 to 25 miles away. I've even heard an officer's body-pak transmitter (the one that feeds into the dash-cam VCR) from 17 miles away.....