KB2GOM
Active Member
I am very well pleased with the Uniden SDS200. I run the the Commuter Assistance Network in the Capital District of New York State (Albany/Schenectady/Troy) workday mornings from 6 am - 8:15 am -- Commuter Assistance Net
IMHO, the SDS200 is a near-perfect scanner: powerful, flexible, you don't have to be a scanner genius to run it, and it helps me to keep track of happenings on the highways. Further, the telescoping metal antenna that comes with it seems to do a pretty good job.
One of the threads on RR mentioned the Comet W100RX antenna, which has two joints near the BNC connector so that it can be bent at a right angle for use on the back of a base scanner (and also folded up when on a handheld), so I decided to give it a try.
It arrived last night. Attaching it to the SDS, I extended it to full length (the W100RX is roughly 14 inches longer than the stock antenna that comes with the SDS200), making no attempt to "tune" the length to a particular frequency, and it was soon happily receiving various LEO agencies. The base segment of the W100RX is painted black (the rest of the segments are silver), and the base segment has markings that indicated how far to extend the antenna for various frequencies. I haven't yet attempted to decipher and use the markings.
Many of the frequencies that I monitor are in the VHF range, and the W100RX seemed to be doing a good job, but how could I verify it? Switching the SDS200 to aircraft frequencies, it soon locked onto the Albany County Airport ATIS broadcast. Automatic terminal information service, or ATIS, is a continuous broadcast of recorded aeronautical information in busier terminal areas, i.e. airports and their immediate surroundings . . . from a fixed location on fixed power.
Switching between the W100RX and the stock antenna that comes with the SDS200 (with the scanner in the exact same position), I was able to see that the W100RX antenna captured a full S unit of stronger signal than the stock antenna. This is hardly the gold standard of antenna testing, but I think this preliminary result is encouraging.
IMHO, the SDS200 is a near-perfect scanner: powerful, flexible, you don't have to be a scanner genius to run it, and it helps me to keep track of happenings on the highways. Further, the telescoping metal antenna that comes with it seems to do a pretty good job.
One of the threads on RR mentioned the Comet W100RX antenna, which has two joints near the BNC connector so that it can be bent at a right angle for use on the back of a base scanner (and also folded up when on a handheld), so I decided to give it a try.
It arrived last night. Attaching it to the SDS, I extended it to full length (the W100RX is roughly 14 inches longer than the stock antenna that comes with the SDS200), making no attempt to "tune" the length to a particular frequency, and it was soon happily receiving various LEO agencies. The base segment of the W100RX is painted black (the rest of the segments are silver), and the base segment has markings that indicated how far to extend the antenna for various frequencies. I haven't yet attempted to decipher and use the markings.
Many of the frequencies that I monitor are in the VHF range, and the W100RX seemed to be doing a good job, but how could I verify it? Switching the SDS200 to aircraft frequencies, it soon locked onto the Albany County Airport ATIS broadcast. Automatic terminal information service, or ATIS, is a continuous broadcast of recorded aeronautical information in busier terminal areas, i.e. airports and their immediate surroundings . . . from a fixed location on fixed power.
Switching between the W100RX and the stock antenna that comes with the SDS200 (with the scanner in the exact same position), I was able to see that the W100RX antenna captured a full S unit of stronger signal than the stock antenna. This is hardly the gold standard of antenna testing, but I think this preliminary result is encouraging.
