Airbands
I have the 500 and use the Radio Shack 800MHz antenna and it really shines on 800MHz I have a few antenna analyzers at home this weekend and here is what I get band by band stock Vs. The Radio Shack 800. By the way with the 800 MHz antenna I get 139 and 300 Mil Air transmissions like crazy.
Stock Antenna SWR
80MHz 28
120 MHz 21
155 MHz 1.8
250MHz 23
389MHz 4
448MHz 3
506MHz 3
820MHz 1.5
850MHz 3
866MHz 5
Radio Shack 800 Antenna
80MHz 33
120MHz 30
155MHz 22
250MHz 5
389MHz 3
448MHz 3
506MHz 3
820MHz 2
850MHz 1.5
866MHz 1
Measurements made with Bird Antenna Tester AT 400 and AT800
Range 80-520MHz and 806-960MHz
Now these ratios can and do change if I were to walk around the house for the best SWR but I did all these sitting at the laptop as they are intended as a comparison only. The lower the SWR match the better matched the atenna for transmit and receive. Even though some matches are in into the 20's and 30's doesn't mean the radio will never hear those transmissions. If you have a low SWR you will hear many more weak transmissions.
For those with Multi-Cast system trouble I would try an antenna that is not very good on 800MHz to help reduce interference from multiple towers. First I;d try the Attenuator then a poor performance antenna.
Just food for thought.
FrankJ said:
How does the PSR-500 compare on the civil and military airbands compared to other scanners? I'm considering buying one, but it MUST work well on the airbands as well as digital trunking. Anybody test it on those frequencies?
Frank
