Surplus 800MHz HT antenna question

[freema22]

Hi team,
Quick question. Everyone says how great the 800Mhz scanner antenna from Radio Shack is for P25 systems, but I was just curious if anyone has tried using an actual antenna from a public safety radio that is used on those frequencies. You can find lots of 800Mhz HT antennas on places like Amazon. Inventory at my local RS is hit or miss at best.

Thanks,
Mike

 

[W8RMH]

I have used many 800MHz commercial and cellular antennas, some work and some don't but none work as well as the scanner antenna.

The Remtronix antenna from places like ScannerMaster is the same antenna as the Radio Shack antenna.

REMTRONIX 800 MHz Portable BNC Antenna | Scanner Master

 

[teufler]

I am using real 800mhz antennas off older 800,mhz Motorola HT's. I am using them on 396xt. They show 2 bars increase over the stock 396xt antenna. 1 bar increase over a Austin Condor antenna. The antennas that show a best receive are the 800mx antennas. For mobile I use the Motorola duyal 5/8 wave or the single 5/8 wave for 800 mhz. It seems that dedicated 800 mhz antennas, work best but for all around, a dual band vhf/uhf works pretty good on 800 mhz.

 

[mmckenna]

You can find lots of 800Mhz HT antennas on places like Amazon.

Be very cautious with those from Amazon or e-Bay. There are loads of Chinese antennas on these sites. Reports are that they are rarely resonate anywhere near their designed/claimed frequency. There was a pretty good write up a few years back from someone that had bought some of these and suffered from poor performance. They put them on an antenna analyzer and discovered they were just sort of randomly tuned and often no where near where they needed to be.

If you were going to try this, and I'd say "go for it", spend the extra few bucks and get a real Motorola antenna.

 

[DJ11DLN]

I tried the one from my department-issue EFJ 51sl es on a couple of my scanners...only one I had around to try. The RS800 beat it hands down on 800, plus continued to receive acceptably on VHF-Hi/UHF, where the EFJ duck was pretty dismal. Even a dual-band Ham duck did better on 800. But Your Mileage May Vary.