LNA-VHF-B Pre-Amplifier has anyone used this? I am trying to pull in a long range station better in the 162.00 to the 174.995 basically USFS frequencies. using a sds200 scanner. thanks if you can recommend. Thomas
LNA-VHF-B Pre-Amplifier
- Thread starter thomasbillman1
- Start date
That has a lot of gain to put in front of a scanner and they don't tell you any important specs other than gain. That usually indicates lousy noise figure and 1dB compression or IP3 specs. A preamp is mot a replacement for a good antenna and preamp gain is not associated in any way to antenna gain. It may help a little and if it helps at all it will be very small. More than likely it will overload the scanner or the preamp itself will get blitzed by strong signals and make reception worse. Unfortunately you won't know until you try it.
Ubbe
Member
It has a 2dB noise figure. It's bandpass filter are stated as attenuating 25dB at 900MHz. It doesn't seem to be much better than what are already in a scanner.
You can get a much better LNA, but without a bandpass:
https://www.amazon.com/Tangxi-Amplifier-Frequency-Capability-Connector/dp/B0BZ4WTCL5/
You will have to use attenuation at the scanner, some 10dB-15dB maybe. Your antenna will be the most important part, that it is designed for the VHF-Hi band. If you use coax or adapters that gives you a F connector at the scanner you can use a CATV splitter that will attenuate and split the signal to several receivers and an attenuator with F connectors are half price and there are even adjustable ones 0-20dB that let you set the optimum attenuation level that wont overload your scanner.
SDS scanners has a preamplifier built into them and are already set to run at the brink of overload, so it might be difficult to improve anything using that scanner.
Depending of your local RF situation you might have some high power transmitters in the VHF band that needs to be attenuated using notch filters, for 155MHz and 162MHz. Using the Waterfall feature on the scanner will reveal what interfering transmitters you might have in your area that would make it impossible to improve anything, using a SDS200 scanner.
/Ubbe
You can get a much better LNA, but without a bandpass:
https://www.amazon.com/Tangxi-Amplifier-Frequency-Capability-Connector/dp/B0BZ4WTCL5/
You will have to use attenuation at the scanner, some 10dB-15dB maybe. Your antenna will be the most important part, that it is designed for the VHF-Hi band. If you use coax or adapters that gives you a F connector at the scanner you can use a CATV splitter that will attenuate and split the signal to several receivers and an attenuator with F connectors are half price and there are even adjustable ones 0-20dB that let you set the optimum attenuation level that wont overload your scanner.
SDS scanners has a preamplifier built into them and are already set to run at the brink of overload, so it might be difficult to improve anything using that scanner.
Depending of your local RF situation you might have some high power transmitters in the VHF band that needs to be attenuated using notch filters, for 155MHz and 162MHz. Using the Waterfall feature on the scanner will reveal what interfering transmitters you might have in your area that would make it impossible to improve anything, using a SDS200 scanner.
/Ubbe
