One Antenna to 2 Scanners

[Andrew033009]

Good evening

I currently run 2 feeds, a railroad and a WX.

The WX antenna is the original that came with the radio. nothing special at all.

The Railroad has an antenna mounted on the roof. Every time during a Severe WX event I have to switch the railroad antenna to the wx radio.


i wanted to see if there was a way to get a splitter, without any sort of loss. (or as little as possible)

both scanners are uniden with BNC connectors.

I monitor 159-165 MHZ.
thanks

andrew

 

[tampabaynews]

Stridsberg Engineering

Multicouplers

MCA204M or MCA202M

 

[mmckenna]

i wanted to see if there was a way to get a splitter, without any sort of loss. (or as little as possible)

both scanners are uniden with BNC connectors.

I monitor 159-165 MHZ.
thanks

andrew

A splitter, on its own, is going to have a bit more than 3dB of loss on each port. 3dB is half your signal. So, if you have a really strong signal to work with, that might be all you need.

If you don't have a strong signal (likely with the railroad stuff) you'll want an amplified splitter, like tampabaynews linked to. That'll boost the signal coming from the antenna and overcome the 3dB loss from the splitter. Done right, it can work well. However, you do need to be careful with amplifiers as they will amplify everything in their designed spectrum, including things that may cause interference. Often you'll see people suggest adding a broadcast FM filter and/or a paging band filter.

 

[Andrew033009]

thanks! where woild i be able to get a filter for that?

A splitter, on its own, is going to have a bit more than 3dB of loss on each port. 3dB is half your signal. So, if you have a really strong signal to work with, that might be all you need.

If you don't have a strong signal (likely with the railroad stuff) you'll want an amplified splitter, like tampabaynews linked to. That'll boost the signal coming from the antenna and overcome the 3dB loss from the splitter. Done right, it can work well. However, you do need to be careful with amplifiers as they will amplify everything in their designed spectrum, including things that may cause interference. Often you'll see people suggest adding a broadcast FM filter and/or a paging band filter.

 

[mmckenna]

thanks! where woild i be able to get a filter for that?

There are members on this site that can probably give you better advice on this.

PAR Electronics | Filters for the commercial 2 way market, MATV, FM broadcast, laboratory, marine industry, amateur radio, scanner and short wave listening enthusiasts

PAR Electronics Inc. Filters for the commercial 2 way market, MATV, FM broadcast, laboratory, marine industry, amateur radio, scanner and short wave

www.parelectronics.com