Outside Scanner Antenna

[tinman981]

Hello All
Im looking for recommendations on a Good external Antenna ( whip style preferably ) for my Uniden BCD 536 vhf uhf an public service band (P25).

thanks

 

[davenlr]

To cover all those frequencies, I would recommend either a Diamond Discone or a ST2 dipole. If using the discone I would use LMR400 coax. The ST2 includes 50' of 75 ohm coax, which while not the best, does a decent job. The St2 will give you a little more gain, but the discone will cover all the frequencies the scanner does.

I have heard good reports on the DPD Productions multiband scanner antenna, but have not tried one, nor have I tried the highly touted Austin FERRET antenna...

Those 4 are some of the most used wideband antennas for scanners. There are lots of others, directional, single, dual band antennas... All depends what you want to listen to, how far away it is, etc.

st2: http://www.amazon.com/Scanner-Ant-B...8&qid=1398129878&sr=1-2&keywords=st+2+antenna

Ferret: http://www.rfwiz.com/AustinAntenna/AustinAntennaFerret.htm

Diamond: http://www.universal-radio.com/catalog/scanants/2405.html

DPD: http://dpdproductions.com/page_scanner.html#omnix

 

[KMG54]

I put one of these TRAM 1465 Land Mobile Base Ground Plane Kit : Antennas & dummy loads | RadioShack.com temporarily with a Laresen tri bander mobile antenna and the results were great on my Pro197. I have two of these mounts and a maxRad 800 ground plane ready to go up with maxrad no ground antennas for 150 460 and 800 using the ground plane mounts. All the antennas claim 2 plus DBI without ground plane gain and 4.5 with ground plane. I think I might be dissapointed with the money spent on a triplexer and all the antennas after seeing the larsen in action!

 

[n5ims]

If your needs are indeed only the VHF-Hi and UHF bands, I'd strongly recommend that you get one of the various dual band VHF/UHF ham antennas that are on the market. The typical all-band scanner antenna will work on all bands, but give you very little gain in exchange for the wide frequency range. A dual band ham antenna will generally give you 6 to 9 dBd of gain on the two bands it covers. While it's optimized for the ham frequencies, they are so close to the VHF and UHF public service bands, you'll still get nearly 100% of that gain.

Now they may not be the least expensive ones around, they won't fall apart like some. My dual band Comet has been up and working without issues for well over a decade while my R S Discone didn't last any where near half that. There also have been reports that the ST2 has durability issues (there is even a procedure for how to add support to make it stronger as discussed in this thread http://forums.radioreference.com/sc...inforcement-support-st2-antenna-question.html).

The link below has a selection of them so you can start to compare to see what you want.
Texas Towers, Vertical Antennas Page

 

[rk911]

Hello All
Im looking for recommendations on a Good external Antenna ( whip style preferably ) for my Uniden BCD 536 vhf uhf an public service band (P25).

thanks

if you have any antennas that can be mounted outdoors experiment with those before you starting buying. I hooked up my Pro-197 to a broken 2-meter 1/4-wave vertical with two missing radials...and it works just fine. i'm receiving StarCom as well as conventional UHF and VHF. I may end up replacing it at some point depending on other factors such as range but at least for now i'm happy.

 

[WA4HHG]

MP Antenna Super-M Ultra Base? Comments

Anyone have experience or thoughts on the MP Super-M? I concentrate on 800 mhz and 300 mhz military/Federal.

Thanks !

 

[teufler]

any outside antenna beats the inside antenna. The Workman brand, they are sort of a diamond clone, far cheaper but it us, they have held up fine for me. I use a uvs300, costs about $70.00. 8.3 gain on vhf and 11.4 on uhf. These are isotropic but still good figurers. It is tuneable. I use it for monitoring and transmitting. I use a good quality switch box to isolate the scanner from the transamitter. I take it you will not be transmitting on 300 mhz sop it will listen fine. It is 18ft tall with radials that are 18". Takes the wind and ice good. I did have one at 190 feet on a water tower. The wind tore it up in 1 year. The mast clamps were not strong enough.