The right antena for the roof

[fshndean]

I am living in bay city Oregon and am using my uniden bct8 police scanner with a 25-to 1300mh whip,
I would like to mount an exterior antenna on my roof so that i can receive from farther away.
the coast is all analog ,no trunking, I listen to coast guard,police,fire,ems,aircraft, What I need help with is purchasing the right antenna, somone told be to buy a 400to 600mh and onother person told me to purchace a 25 to 1300mh wideband discone

Can someone please send me some good info ? I have been looking at a few 25 to 1300 widband discone sets that come with 50' of cable and bnc connector , I think the price was $59 with shipping

also does my bct8 need re-banded for analog at the coast ?

 

[W2PMX]

the coast is all analog ,no trunking

Which has nothing at all to do with the antenna. Antennas are rated purely by frequency and gain, not by the type of signal.

Can someone please send me some good info ? I have been looking at a few 25 to 1300 widband discone sets

Okay, here's some good info. The frequency range of a discone is, at best (and you get that from antennas starting around $150) 4:1. There's no such thing as a discone that receives equally well from 25-1300MHz, regardless of what the adsvertising hype for any particular antenna claims. Any antenna will receive something at any frequency (even a 1" long wire will receive some signals at 10Khz), but if you want something better than the whip on the scanner, buy an antenna that's actually designed to receive in the frequency ranges you want to listen to. (Not one "designed" by the marketing department to "receive" a broad range of frequencies that's just about impossible in reality.)

also does my bct8 need re-banded for analog at the coast ?

Only for 800 MHz Motorola trunking systems (and I'm not sure that the BCT8 can be rebanded), so most likely not. ("Rebanding" for anything else is just a matter of using the current frequency for the transmitter.)

 

[fshndean]

the right antenna

Thanks for helping, I do not understand the frequency ranges that are used here at the coast. is there anyway you could give me an idea what ranges they run on here ? I think its 400mhz and up.

I listen to the coast guard mostly, the tillamook police,garibaldi police and rockaway police.

I am going to be buying the roof top antenna at ham radio outlet in tigard oregon but need to understand what antenna would be best for my wallet and frequency's that I listen to.

If you could suggest a few antenna kits from the ham radio outlet with cable and bnc connector this would help me very much.

there are so many different styles and types of antennas I am totally lost .

Thank You

 

[mayidunk]

Universal Radio sells the Antennacraft Scantenna for $35.95. From everything I've ever read about it, it has a very good reputation. There are some who think its performance on 800 MHz is lacking, while others say it performs quite well on 800 MHz. Perhaps others here will chime in with their own experiences.

Antennacraft ST2 Scanner Antenna, Antenna Craft ST-2

Hope this helps, good luck!

 

[K7CAR]

The ST-2 is an excellent ant. for the money. I've had one up for over 2 years and it performs exceptionally well at all frequencies. It will be heads above your whip antenna. Install it in the clear away from any metal and seal the coax connector. Antenna height is far more important at VHF-UHF so do your best to get it up as high as you can. If you have high winds >60 mph then you might want to mod the antenna with a fiberglass whip. There's posts on here how to do that.

I'm in WA State and the marine frequencies are in the 150-160 mhz range and the ST-2 works well. I have a dedicated 800-900 mhz Larson ground plane antenna at 40 ft. and it just barely out performs the ST-2 at 35 ft. The ST-2 will work much better than a discone antenna. I have several discones up, Radio Shack, Diamond, AEA and they don't come close. If you're not trying to pull in a weak signal then disregard all the hype about installing $$$ coax. Yes it's always prudent to go with the best coax you can afford, but I bet 90% of the people on here would never tell the difference between $100 worth of LMR 400 and cheap RG-6. You'll get 50 ft. of coax with the ST-2, so go with that then expand your setup at a later time if you want to improve reception.

 

[fshndean]

thank you

 

[fshndean]

thanks the st2 is it then