I have been fairly into scanning for quite some time, but am trying to get bigger into it lately. I do still consider myself quite a newb when it comes to this stuff. Anyways, I recently upgraded my scanner from a RS Pro-96 to a Uniden BCD996XT so I am looking to set up some sort of base antenna. The whip my Uniden came with is complete junk. I live in a brick apartment building on the 3rd floor, so I won't be able to go too nuts. I primarily listen to Anoka, Hennepin, and Ramsey Counties here in Minnesota which are all on the ARMER system. I tried an off center fed dipole that I made a few months ago using RG6U and had it resting against the wall in the bedroom. That seemed to work alright until the cat knocked it over and now all of a sudden my reception is very choppy. It's odd because nothing is broken or loose. I am kind of assuming that I completely lucked out on the EXACT placement it WAS in. I've moved it around about a million times to try and get the same reception I had but am not having any luck. So now think I am giving up on that whole idea and looking for something else. Since money is tight I've experimented with a few other different things I have lying around to see if I can improve reception, but it is still very choppy. I would like to hear what everyone would suggest using for an antenna in the 800mhz ranges. Thanks in advance.