Looking for antenna

[Jcraft203]

Hi all,

I am looking for an outdoor antenna that will increase my range a bit. I currently have a new sds100 for my digital around the area so I want to use an older handeld I have for the few analog frequencies around the area. Currently my handheld ( radio shack Pro-82 and Uniden Bc72) receive the analogs and you can hear the transmissions but have static and white noise which is annoying. The transmitters are about 15-18 miles away. I have tried a Diamond RH77 on it but it didn't help much. I am not looking to pickup signals from 50 miles away nor want to mount a huge rooftop antenna. Would like something small that I could mount on the side of the house or window to just pick up 15-20 miles to get this dept.. I will search around the net but wondering if anyone knows any small discrete ones off hand. I was also thinking why couldnt use just get a magnetic car mount one and use it. My windows on the house have metal awnings over them so I could easily pop a magnetic mount on to the top of the awning which would be about 10-12' off the ground. Thx

 

[jonwienke]

Indoor Discone Antenna Setup

For those who for whatever reason can't set up an outdoor antenna, this setup works quite a bit better than a ducky/whip. Antenna: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00QVPGKHU/ Stand: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000E0PPG0/ The stand tubing is the exact right size to fit the antenna...

forums.radioreference.com

This gets significantly better reception than the handheld antennas, without being ridiculously large. The discone gets continuous reception from approximately 100-900MHz, while the mag mount and handheld antennas receive well in specific bands, but have gaps in reception. I would suggest trying it indoors, and see if that works, and if you want to improve things more, put the discone up on a pole outside.

The metal awnings are probably aluminum, and a mag mount may not stick to them. Test before going that route.

 

[Ubbe]

If you feel that a discone takes up too much space then cut all elements to half lenghts. It will still work from 200MHz and upwards and will improve the reception at it's frequencies compared to the original lenght. You can even cut them to 1/3 lenghts for a minumum 300MHz frequency range.

You can hang it from the ceiling like a lamp and don't need to get an expensive floor stand. All discones perform almost the same if they have 8 bottom elements and 8 top ones, so you can get a cheap $40 one as it doesn't need to be able to handle harsh enviroments, which will rack up the price.

/Ubbe