Home Antenna Recommendations for RR Band

[Awesomeman92]

Long story semi-short, I'm looking to upgrade my scanner antenna specifically for mostly listening to the railroad band. Currently I have a Comet GP-3 on a 10 foot pole on my back patio going to my Yaesu FTM-100D, and a DPD Productions OmniX on the roof for all of my receivers (fed through a Stridsberg multicoupler). Even though the DPD is slightly higher mounted on an old Dish bracket on the roof of the house, the Comet can hear just a little bit farther. I don't live immediately next to a line, but have lines 5 miles north, west, and south. I live about 10 and a half miles from CP's Bensenville Yard and while my Comet can usually hear both the trains calling as they leave and the dispatcher side from Tower B-17, the DPD only gets the dispatcher side. Chicago Union Station is about 26 miles away and the Amtrak PD repeater comes in nearly full quieting on the Comet, and very scratchy if at all on the DPD. I have 2 CN defect detectors to my west (about 6 and 10 miles away) that normally come in weak but readable on the Comet, with nothing on the DPD. I have swapped the coax around and it is not the radios, the DPD has just very slightly less reach. Note that I'm not saying the DPD OmniX is a bad antenna: it's a great wideband antenna and doesn't have the spaceship look of a discone, I just think I can do better for my purposes with something that has more gain.

I'd like to be able to hear B-17 and Bensenville better and possibly pull in the Pingree Grove dispatch tower about 16 miles west. This would give me heads up for both eastbound trains clearing their track warrants from the CP Chicago Sub and westbounds out of Bensenville. Pingree Grove is a rough copy on the Comet and a no copy on the DPD.

Obviously if I have it connected to my receivers I can't use the Comet to transmit, which is why I'm looking to swap out the DPD.

I only have a few requirements. I would like to stay under or around $100 if possible, $150 is my absolute max. I also need something with an N connector as that's what the DPD uses and I'm not replacing the coax and lightning suppressor it runs through (I want this to be as easy and seamless a transition as possible). If a vertical, I'd like to keep it under 10 feet with 8 being a sweet spot. I also do want a dual band antenna in case I need to swap and use it on 2m/70cm, plus I still listen to a few things left on UHF here. I also need at least minimal 800 MHz reception. Nothing crazy, just enough to get my local simulcast trunking site. My Comet does fine at this so I don't anticipate this really being a problem.

I'm looking at 3 different models, all Diamond: the D130NJ (I know, I know, I said I wanted something with gain...), the X50NA, and the X300NA. I have a D130J and it worked quite well when I had it outside. I know discones can sometimes hear out towards the horizon better than they do close by, which is why I'd even consider it, but I don't think it would gain me too much (pun intended). The X50NA looks on paper identical to my Comet and so I think it would do fine and probably benefit from the additional height. The 300 is my overkill antenna. I'm not crazy about putting something 10 feet up from the roof, but the 6.5 dB (I'm assuming dBi? The website and online manual don't specify) gain is tempting. I'd get a Comet if they had anything dual band under 16 feet tall that had an N connector. Similarly if Diamond made a N connector version of the X200A I'd go with that.

Does anyone have any experience with any of the above for the railroad band that they could pass along? I'm not in any real hurry to order something, I just want to get it done before it snows and I can't get to the roof anymore. I'm probably leaning towards the X50NA with the discone 2nd but would really like to hear if anyone has used one in that specific capacity before pulling the trigger on it (this is why I posted it in the rail forum, I figured I'd have a better chance here finding someone who actually has). Or, if anyone has a different suggestion that fits the description, I'd be open as well.

Thanks in advance!

 

[prcguy]

Unless your looking at commercial band antennas from Comet or Diamond, they are amateur band and will not perform at 160MHz like they do in the amateur band. Most amateur band antennas can barely cover the amateur band and some will loose a lot of gain nearly 20MHz out of band.

 

[Awesomeman92]

I'm not sure what antennas you're referring to as I can only speak to what I have and use but my GP-3 is a decent enough performer from air band to NOAA. A drop in signal is more noticeable on UHF, but even still it's a good performer all the way up to about 460 or so. Is it as good as a band dedicated antenna tuned to a resonant frequency? Almost definitely not. But it's a compromise. Most of the commercial antennas I've found are either too expensive, not dual band, too tall, or some combination of the above. Something like the X50NC2 looks like it would be a decent choice but even it doesn't go higher than 155 (although the HRO listing shows 145-162) and is $30 more than the regular X50, approaching the cap of what I can afford with tax & shipping. I will admit I never thought about a commercial dual band antenna for this particular application though.

This is also why I'm looking for someone who has actual experience using one of these in this application. If it works, I don't care what the actual gain number is. I'm sure my GP-3 doesn't get the full 4.5 dBi at 160 but it works and works well enough for me. I don't expect performance to be as good as in the middle of the amateur bands, and I don't really need it to be, I'm just looking for something better than what I have.

 

[cbehr91]

The most you could get on that budget from a known-to-be good brand is something like this Sirio 5/8th wave.

BuyAntenna.Com

BuyAntenna.Com

www.sirio.store

From that same vendor you could also get a yagi antenna and a rotor if you're interested in listening in one direction.

Don't skimp on coax and weatherproofing either.

 

[Awesomeman92]

The yagi would be nice to have but I don't think the slope of the roof would give enough room to turn it 360 degrees, plus then I'd have to buy a rotator. The two points I would most often be interested in are 272 degrees and 129 degrees from me, so I feel like I'd spend more time turning back and forth than actually hearing what I'm after. The vertical looks like it would be great for the RR band but I just can't pull the trigger on a single band antenna right now, there's still too much left on UHF I want to have performance on.

Looking through that company's website is interesting, I've never seen a company give gain figures for a vertical above 30 MHz in both dBd and dBi. Seems like anyone in the market for one of those would be able to convert between the two on their own, but I guess it is nice to not have to do math.

Both antennas are fed at least mostly with LMR-400 - the scanner antenna uses LMR-240 inside the house because its easier to work with and takes up less room when hiding behind furniture, but it's a short enough run that the difference in loss was acceptable (less than .5dB at 450). All outdoor runs are entirely 400.

 

[Awesomeman92]

Well, after thinking about it for a day, I went commercial: the Diamond X50NC2 was ordered this morning. We'll see how it does and I'll update here when it gets here and I get it up. I called HRO and they had one in stock for about $20 cheaper than everywhere else so depending on when and where it ships from I'd expect it early next week. It'll also at least give me MURS and likely be good on at least part of GMRS too, so that'll be nice. I went $9 over my budget with shipping and tax, but that's not a super huge deal.

Thanks everyone and especially @prcguy for the suggestion I never thought of to go with something commercial, and I'll be back in a while with an update on how it works!

 

[Ubbe]

The Omni-X has some 2dBi gain and the X50 has 4,5dBi at 155MHz and less at the edges of its frequency range, that goes up to 155MHz and cannot be retuned. At 160MHz it will be even worse and probably equal to the Omni-X.

There are good UHF to N adapters so that shouldn't be a showstopper, I use one to keep all antennas using N. I use a Diamond F23 that has 7,8dBi gain and can be tuned up to 174MHz and it feeds several scanners that also receives most other frequency bands just fine. It's a thin antenna that doesn't have much wind load.

I'm a bit puzzled by the statement that a discone receives better at the horizon than it will nearby, I thought it was the totally opposite.

/Ubbe

 

[sonm10]

Took me quite some time to find this... Have a read through this thread
Seeking Feedback on Rail Band Reception Improvement Options | RadioReference.com Forums

 

[Awesomeman92]

I'm a bit puzzled by the statement that a discone receives better at the horizon than it will nearby, I thought it was the totally opposite.

I think I may have misspoke here, as discones aim below the horizon, which is why height is so important for them. However in my experience my discone was below average with signals a few miles away but I was able to get fire departments 20-25 miles away clear as anything given comparable transmitter power. Maybe I'm an anomaly, I don't know.

Here's my justification in general. A better comparison to make would be the X50 to the GP-3 I'm using now, because the GP-3 I have is better than the OmniX on rail band, I just don't want to permanently use that as a general scanner antenna because it doesn't allow me to use it for anything amateur (obviously). The loss of signal is not in the cabling inside the house, as I've swapped them and the results were the same, and the outside cabling is identical except one lightning arrestor has N connectors and one UHF, leaving the antenna to be the only difference.

I'm really not too concerned with the actual gain is at 160 MHz on any of these antennas, all I'm concerned with is if it works. Again, the OmniX should have better gain figures and is mounted higher, but it just cannot hear as far in my case. I understand that gain drops off away from the center frequency, and I wouldn't be getting the advertised level on anything outside the advertised range. However, the amateur version of the X50 is from what I can tell identical to the GP-3, so I feel comfortable comparing the two as if they're the same. My GP-3 works very well (for my purposes) on the railroad band despite being tuned for amateur bands (my analyzer shows about 145.8 as the center frequency on 2m). So my theory is given effectively identical antennas other than frequency range, performance of the commercial version (X50C) should be better just on the fact that the frequency range is 5 MHz off instead of 12 MHz. Whether that's completely accurate or not I can't speak to, but I'll only be able to find out if I try it. Worst case scenario I just end up adding some gain for VHF public safety reception and in the process add an antenna for MURS. However (and this was how I justified what I got) even if the actual performance is at least identical to my amateur-tuned GP-3-which it shouldn't be-it'll be an improvement over what I'm getting from the OmniX and will be worth it.

As I said, I'd love to have dedicated band antennas and I'm sure it would work much better but I just don't have the room for it at the house nor the money. If both were unlimited I'd have them up on a tower too and get some real height involved. I also can't justify a single use antenna. The EMA I volunteer with uses MURS so it would be nice to be able to use it from home, so that is another added benefit of the X50NC2. I had been looking at MURS-only antennas but decided to not get one because I didn't want to have to run another coax run or put a duplexer in my HF antenna cable run. I also don't want to go too tall because I wasn't the one who installed the mount on the roof and I don't know how much weight and wind load it can take. I'd rather be safe than have it be ripped out of the roof in a storm from the wind load.

I will absolutely try to do some signal measurements and compare all 3: GP-3, OmniX, and X50NC2.

 

[wa8pyr]

Unless your looking at commercial band antennas from Comet or Diamond, they are amateur band and will not perform at 160MHz like they do in the amateur band. Most amateur band antennas can barely cover the amateur band and some will loose a lot of gain nearly 20MHz out of band.

Actually the amateur band antennas work quite nicely for VHF receive in the railroad band.

I've been using an amateur band antenna in my attic (specifically a Diamond X50A) for railroad reception for years; works like a charm and far superior to a scanner antenna. Used a Ringo Ranger before that, which also worked well. And they work quite nicely for ham band transmitting if the need arises.

I've also got the Diamond models on the outside of the building at work as well (about 20 feet off the ground); I can reliably receive trains for nearly 20 miles in any direction, and farther if conditions are right. The Diamond X50A is quite reasonably priced; just under $100 at most ham radio suppliers.

What's really going to help the OP is elevation. If he could get that Comet antenna just a bit higher in the air I think he would be amazed at the difference that makes.

 

[wwhitby]

Actually the amateur band antennas work quite nicely for VHF receive in the railroad band.

I've been using an amateur band antenna in my attic (specifically a Diamond X50A) for railroad reception for years; works like a charm and far superior to a scanner antenna. Used a Ringo Ranger before that, which also worked well. And they work quite nicely for ham band transmitting if the need arises.

I've also got the Diamond models on the outside of the building at work as well (about 20 feet off the ground); I can reliably receive trains for nearly 20 miles in any direction, and farther if conditions are right. The Diamond X50A is quite reasonably priced; just under $100 at most ham radio suppliers.

What's really going to help the OP is elevation. If he could get that Comet antenna just a bit higher in the air I think he would be amazed at the difference that makes.

I'll second what Tom says about using amateur antennas. I use a Comet GP-9 for 2m/70cm, and on a whim I hooked it up to a Kenwood TK-7180 that I use for my railroad radio feed. The GP-9 is on top of a 30 foot mast and my home is about 9 miles from the closest rail line. The GP-9 worked great and increased the coverage area. I could hear trains calling signals that the 5/8 wave antenna has never picked up before.

I wish I had the money to afford a second one

 

[Awesomeman92]

Well, I swapped out the DPD for the X50NC2 yesterday. I didn't get a chance to do signal level readings before the swap as my help was ready to do the swap in conjunction with a gutter cleaning. Anyway...

As expected, the commercial X50 is just about as good as the GP-3 on the rail band and WAY better than the DPD. I can hear trains on the west end of Bensenville working B-17 on both antennas now, although they're weak on both. On public safety on VHF and UHF this thing is a beast, as you would expect, and 800 MHz reception isn't great but it doesn't need to be, it works well enough. Interestingly the GP-3 seems to be just a tiny hair more sensitive, but it's very close.

Out of curiosity, I took an old TV preamp I had sitting around and put it before the multicoupler. It brings everything on par with the GP-3 with the variable gain turned very low. It would probably do better with a better quality preamp and/or a band pass filter, but that's not a real high priority right now. Unfortunately I can't pump the gain up too much because the Motorola HQ over in Schaumburg has a strong P25 control channel on 161.8something that bleeds over if I put too much juice into it. I'll have more time tomorrow to play around with it and see if I can't dial it in better.

TL;DR: it works. Is it the best? Probably not. Is it better than what I had? Yes.

 

[Ubbe]

Out of curiosity, I took an old TV preamp I had sitting around and put it before the multicoupler.

Try and go directly from amplifier to one of your receivers and see if it will be a difference. It could be that the multicoupler overloads and not your receivers. I solved that problem by removing my Stridsberg multicoupler completely and use a passive splitter and low noise preamp for a much improved weak signal performance.

/Ubbe