Ideas for Base Antenna.. 35ft tower

[xbi0s]

I have an old TV antenna tower next to my home... I want to bolt on an antenna to the side which would come out to about 35ft on the tower...

I am looking for the best I can get for receiving only under $100... I was looking at discone, but would love to hear some input on how I can get the best bang for the buck. Looking to get maximum reception out of the deal.

 

[iMONITOR]

Depending on the antenna design, such as a discone, mounting it on the side of the tower will have some impact on it's performance.

What frequency bands to you normally monitor?

 

[xbi0s]

154 is about the lowest I go... Up into the 400's

I don't plan on getting a digital scanner to pickup county and the nearest trunked would be about 35miles away...

Why would mounting on the side affect performance? Its going to be just below the television tower at the top... Where the brackets curve inwards to mount the TV antenna. I was thinking discone as we had one up there a few years ago and had great luck with it. I was just wondering if certain models were better than others...

 

[intrepid97]

Buy a 2m/70cm ham antenna and you will be good to go.

 

[iMONITOR]

154 is about the lowest I go... Up into the 400's

I don't plan on getting a digital scanner to pickup county and the nearest trunked would be about 35miles away...

Why would mounting on the side affect performance? Its going to be just below the television tower at the top... Where the brackets curve inwards to mount the TV antenna. I was thinking discone as we had one up there a few years ago and had great luck with it. I was just wondering if certain models were better than others...

Any metal along side of antenna, especially when grounded, will make an omni-directional antenna somewhat directional. Depending on where you mount it, in relationship to the direction of the signal you want to receive, it could degrade, or possible even improve the performance. I would try to mount it out from the tower at least three feet. A discone would work OK for those bands, but you might want to consider a high gain dual-band vertical omni-directional antenna.

 

[k9rzz]

Here's the pattern for a vertical dipole mounted on the side of a tower.

The farther away from the tower you go, the less directional it would be.

John K9RZZ