New G4/5 7/800 antenna

[glimerman]

got mine today from rays ,super quick shipping and packaged great .. no difference and if so its very tiny , i got into the singal strength info from the helpfull post a few back and pulling 95 now with thew new antenna ,the old jumps to 96 a bit so i guess there a tiny bit better, on the one p25 one i hoped this would help it still goes out of range when my pager is on my desk .. but it fits good and works fine so who knows maybe it will help a little bit sometimes ill keep it on

 

[markjrenna]

Just placed my order from Ray's!

 

[BigWonton]

Received my new antenna yesterday and played around with it for a few hours. The RSSI meter showed slight improvement but in actual usage, I found performance to be about the same as with my older antenna. Dead spots in my home still remain dead spots so that hasn't changed. Oh well, at least I can better accessorize with my daily fashion now that I can choose between the blue or purple band.

 

[mitbr]

Go to the information screen. While on the screen push the center ”toggle” button and then red, red, white, blue, yellow, red, then the center button again.


Center 224132 Center if you look at the buttons from left to right.

can some on explain how to get into this menue I followed the instructions and it didn't work?

 

[KevinC]

can some on explain how to get into this menue I followed the instructions and it didn't work?

It usually takes me a couple of tries to get it to work, but it's exactly as the instructions indicate. If you have big fingers it may be a little more difficult.

 

[bob550]

can some on explain how to get into this menue I followed the instructions and it didn't work?

The "Information" screen is located in the "Main Menu".

 

[mitbr]

got it to work thanks guys

 

[KevinC]

I suspect the G5 (probably the G4 also) has auto-attenuation (at least on the primary band). Injecting a signal (P25 1011 pattern) the highest reading I get is -94, no matter what I inject. I'm not saying this is a bad thing, but when comparing antennas if your signal is strong you may not see any change using this engineering screen as your reference.

 

[IAmSixNine]

Think they updated that in the newer firmware. I seem to recall that the engineering screen would not show anythig with strong signal and the bottom floor for good signal was -100, so you seeing -94 is an improvement, but you are correct that it really works better when the signal is low.

 

[APX8000]

So I’ve been testing both the original purple band and new blue band “gain” antenna for the Unication G4/5 pagers. The following Motorola and Harris P25 systems and subsequent sites were used:

Palm Beach County
-Countywide Simulcast
-Delray Beach
-Boynton Beach
West Palm Beach
PSIC
Broward County
-Coral Springs
-Plantation
-Fort Lauderdale
Miami-Dade County

Additional equipment used along with the G5 as a signal comparison:
APX8000 (2), APX6000 and XTS5000.

Results:

The new blue band “gain” antenna is “slightly” better. What do I mean by that....well, from what I’ve noticed with trunked systems...when you have a good signal, you have a good signal.

With the Countywide simulcast trunked systems being built so well with so many sites blanketing the coverage area, it’s not really a distinguishable difference.
I’d say about maybe a 1/2 signal bar difference. In other words, if I have 3 bars and it flickers to full 4, with the new antenna that flicker to 4 became a solid 4. But if I have a solid 3, I’m still a solid 3. If I’m OOR, I’m still OOR. So if you are on the fringe I think you will still be on the fringe. You may not go OOR as quickly, but if the signal is not there, it’s not there with either antenna. The dBm is slightly less with the newer antenna and getting less frame errors, but I’m talking only -3 to -5 dBM.



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[radio3353]

I just ordered one. Philly's system is close to fringe for me so that will be a good test case for the extra gain. I will report back with my results next week.

I guess I have a spare antenna now . I did not notice any improvement with the Philly system using the new antenna. Both antennas seem to work the same - periodic short 'out of range' message. Oh well. Need to use my external antenna for full copy of Philly from my location.

 

[rtosby]

Sorry to hear the gain on this is very minimal. Is there a higher gain flex antenna available that would make a solid improvement from a fringe area where I get intermittent OOR?

 

[mdsxfire]

What is the TX freq reading on this screen? I know the pager isn’t transmitting so what is it pulling this info from? I noticed on my local Harris system it shows an actual freq but on the next counties Motorola system it shows all zeroes?


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[Astrak]

What is the TX freq reading on this screen? I know the pager isn’t transmitting so what is it pulling this info from? I noticed on my local Harris system it shows an actual freq but on the next counties Motorola system it shows all zeroes?


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Standard +30mhz for 700 and -45mhz for 800.

 

[mdsxfire]

Standard +30mhz for 700 and -45mhz for 800.

Standard??


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[GTR8000]

Standard??

Yes, those are the standardized offsets for the 700 and 800 bands. +30 MHz for the 700 band, and -45 MHz for the 800 band.

So, either the pager is simply displaying a standardized offset as TX FREQ, or it's showing a decode of the P25 band plan that is broadcast over the control channel.

 

[mdsxfire]

Yes, those are the standardized offsets for the 700 and 800 bands. +30 MHz for the 700 band, and -45 MHz for the 800 band.

So, either the pager is simply displaying a standardized offset as TX FREQ, or it's showing a decode of the P25 band plan that is broadcast over the control channel.

Ahh, ok thank you.


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[markjrenna]

I have 2 new gain antennas for my G4 and G5. I can tell you that where I go (drive) with fringe signal (edges of the West Orange site) I get communication where as before I didn't. But where there is no signal... There is no signal, so no antenna will fix that. I believe, for me, there is an overall improvement and I am glad I made this purchase.