Icom PCR100

[cowsinc04]

Does anyone know what the best antenna to use with a PCR100 to monitor the whole band ?
I have talkpacr and have trouble figureing that program out.
Any help will be great help.
By the way it is up for trade or sale if I cant figure out the program.

 

[MacombMonitor]

Does anyone know what the best antenna to use with a PCR100 to monitor the whole band ?
I have talkpacr and have trouble figureing that program out.
Any help will be great help.
By the way it is up for trade or sale if I cant figure out the program.

There is no such antenna made that will cover the entire frequency range of the PCR100. You have to use several antennas, depending on the band you wish to monitor, for best results. An antenna for it's high range is only couple inches long. On the other end of it's coverage, you would need around 40 feet for good reception.

 

[cowsinc04]

Thanks alot that information is very helpful. So Do i need to get a splitter and run them all at the same time? what equipment do i need ?

 

[MacombMonitor]

Thanks alot that information is very helpful. So Do i need to get a splitter and run them all at the same time? what equipment do i need ?

Splitters introduce too much signal loss. I'm also not aware of a good splitter that would cover such a wide range of frequencies. You would do better to manually change the antenna cable at the receiver, when monitoring a different band. Most any scanner antenna will work decently for VHF/UHF bands. But if you're monitoring any shortwave, thats when you need to get into a long wire antenna. Be advised that the IC-PCR100, unlike the PCR-1000, does not do SSB (Single Side Band), so on shortwave you will be limited to monitor AM signals, which is mostly broadcast stations playing music, and news reports. Most amateur radio, Utilities, and Military are going to be SSB mode.

 

[ve3pzr]

The PCR100 does well in AM mode on the shortwave bands. There are many AM commercial broadcasters all over the world. The best (cheap) method is to use a long bit of wire. If you can get a long chunk of wire outside you will be amazed at what you can hear. The longer the better is the basic rule for shortwave. I went to the local hardware store and bought a small spool of wire. Some satellite TV coax is low loss and works well for receivers. Use the coax to get to the outside and then attach the wire to the center wire.

For signals above 30 mhz, a Discone is a not-bad general purpose antenna. Search the net for some pictures. They look odd with lots of different lengths of solid wire sticking out of the top of them. The concept is this: at least one of the wire elements would be close to the correct length for any specific frequency.

Some of the positive side effects of using RG6 satellite coax is it is cheap and you can use a cable TV A/B switch box to flick between the long wire and the discone. I was able to buy the connectors to fit RG6 onto the back of my PCR100 for $1 at a Dollar Store (London, Ontario).

Some people will argue that 75ohm satellite coax on a radio is just wrong. It must be 50ohm. That arguement would be flawed of course. RG6 (Satellite TV coax) is extremely low loss at high frequencies. "proper" 50ohm coax is big, bulky and lossy above 500mhz. The small loss incurred with RG6 due to the impedence mismatch is minor compared to the improved signal strength with the double-shield of RG6.

I use Ham Radio Deluxe with my PCR100. HRD has a shortwave frequency database built-in which is handy. It also makes the PCR100 easy to operate. I found the trunkPCR hard to control.

good luck,
ve3pzr.

 

[ka3jjz]

The PCR100 does well in AM mode on the shortwave bands. There are many AM commercial broadcasters all over the world. The best (cheap) method is to use a long bit of wire. If you can get a long chunk of wire outside you will be amazed at what you can hear. The longer the better is the basic rule for shortwave. I went to the local hardware store and bought a small spool of wire. Some satellite TV coax is low loss and works well for receivers. Use the coax to get to the outside and then attach the wire to the center wire.

For signals above 30 mhz, a Discone is a not-bad general purpose antenna. Search the net for some pictures.

Hardly necessary; the antennas wiki here at RR has numerous HF designs, as well as some discones and other commercial built antennas. In general, the ScanTenna, Diamond D130J discone and the NilJon all have a good following, but there are many others, too.

One note; I know this is true of the PCR1000, and I would guess that the PCR100 has this as well; on HF, watch the length of the antenna, as overloading is a common probem. This tends to be somewhat specific to your area of the world, as the East Coast of North America tends to get blasted somewhat harder with the high power HF broadcasters than the West Coast or Midwest. Some folks have put a small tuner or passive preselector (like the ones MFJ sells) as a solution.

For some situations, longer is not necessarily better. 73s Mike