I'm in the market for a new Milcom base antenna. I want to cover the Land Mobile, air, VHF, and UHF bands (30 - 400 MHz roughly). My first thought based on previous experience was to go with a discone. I'm curious to see what the Milcom community's favorites/preferences are. so what I'm really asking is what is your preferred Milcom antenna and who makes it?
Presuming you are not going to transmit using the antenna, I recommend avoiding a Milcom antenna due to the usual cost associated with it. Keep searching you may find something on eBay, but others are looking as well.
You may be better served with two or three scanners and antennas tuned for different bands, depending on the distance of what you are trying to monitor. The added benefit is the short scan time of each resulting in more catches, presuming the freqs do not overlap. Transmissions are typically short.
A single discone may do what you need, but it depends on the distance you want to cover. In particular that want of starting at 30 MHz, if you have low band activity in your area.
I mainly focus on mil air. I use:
- Three scanners
- Two antennas (w/proper signal spliter on one of them)
1. AT-197A/GR (225-400 + notch filter and amp)
2. Regular Discone
If I do catch something down low around 40 MHz on one of the scanners, I turn on an HF radio and use an Off Center Fed or vertical HF antenna.