scantenna?

[timmer]

I was wondering what antenna some of you use as an outdoor antenna. I'm looking for an antenna to use that will pick up low and high band vhf extremely well. Do any of you use the scantenna and if so, can it pull in state police and snow plows 20 -25 miles away if mounted on a 40-45 foot tower? Any input would be helpfull, thanks in advance!!

 

[AuntEnvy]

I was wondering what antenna some of you use as an outdoor antenna. I'm looking for an antenna to use that will pick up low and high band vhf extremely well. Do any of you use the scantenna and if so, can it pull in state police and snow plows 20 -25 miles away if mounted on a 40-45 foot tower? Any input would be helpfull, thanks in advance!!

I would imagine you'd be able to pull in those comms a lot farther than that. I have that antenna and it's mounted on a porch roof and it pulls in at least that far. It all depends on your location, terrain, and cables etc. Presuming everything in your set-up is in good working order and your antenna is on a tower like that you should get just about anything you want in a very large radius.

 

[timmer]

Thanks for the info.

 

[K9JLR]

This has not been the case in my experience. I tried several different antennas, but none perfomed very well on lowband if it performed well on highband and/or UHF. I don't know of any base antenna that will perform this feat, unless you are working with well over 40-45 feet in height.

I solved the problem by purchasing a Cushcraft Ringo Ranger AR-6 antenna. I can work six meters incredibly well with this antenna (less than 1.5:1 SWR across the band), but as a bonus when the bands are not open I use the antenna primarily to monitor lowband. It literally sucks in the signals of distant snow plows and IL state police cars at about 25 feet in height, 20-25 miles easy! I use a Diamond Discone antenna to monitor V/UHF and it does very well, but I don't care for discones or Scantennas on lowband or 800 MHz, as that's not their peak area of efficiency as far as I'm concerned.

I also purchased an Antennex 6 dB gain vertical antenna for 800 MHz and it works very well, thus solving the gaps I had with discones.

 

[timmer]

Thanks again for the info. Where would one purchase this ar-6 antenna and approx. how much $$ ?

 

[K9JLR]

Universal Radio for $90.00...go to http://www.universal-radio.com/catalog/hamants/0634.html

 

[AuntEnvy]

This has not been the case in my experience. I tried several different antennas, but none perfomed very well on lowband if it performed well on highband and/or UHF. I don't know of any base antenna that will perform this feat, unless you are working with well over 40-45 feet in height.

I solved the problem by purchasing a Cushcraft Ringo Ranger AR-6 antenna. I can work six meters incredibly well with this antenna (less than 1.5:1 SWR across the band), but as a bonus when the bands are not open I use the antenna primarily to monitor lowband. It literally sucks in the signals of distant snow plows and IL state police cars at about 25 feet in height, 20-25 miles easy! I use a Diamond Discone antenna to monitor V/UHF and it does very well, but I don't care for discones or Scantennas on lowband or 800 MHz, as that's not their peak area of efficiency as far as I'm concerned.

I also purchased an Antennex 6 dB gain vertical antenna for 800 MHz and it works very well, thus solving the gaps I had with discones.

The scantenna will do the air band justice I can tell you that! Yes, having different antennas for different things is obviously the best idea but not practical for most.

 

[jrs71]

I had a Scantenna prior to putting up dual yagis last summer. My Scantenna was right at 30' high and I could hear ISP (42.xx MHz) cars 25 miles away max. The Scantenna is a good performing omni on VHF high but I always felt it lacked a little on low-band VHF. And, for listening to UHF at any distance, one should probably upgrade the RG-6 to a lower-loss coax.