Thoughts and opinions..

[SouthernRoller]

Asking for the antenna guru's thoughts and opinions on this antenna? Deluxe Discone Antenna
It's primary use will be to monitor the 150-174 mhz freq. range connected to a Whistler WS 1065.
Thanks in advance.

 

[mmckenna]

20 Something years ago I tried one of their antennas.

Was not impressed.

If VHF is your intended use of the antenna, then stick with a VHF only antenna with some gain. It'll outperform that antenna.

 

[prcguy]

That antenna is not really a Discone. Apparently they could not design a Discone properly so they had to add a whip on top to make it work so its actually a ground plane with some spikes sticking out the side of the whip.

Any other Discone with a whip has the whip base loaded and decoupled somewhat from the actual Discone so it only works around 50Mhz to supplement VHF low band. The whip on this antenna is not loaded and will be in circuit at all frequencies. For a less expensive Discone that works ok look for a Tram or Harvest brand on Ebay. Or as the other post mentioned, if you only need VHF get a VHF gain type antenna.

 

[jonwienke]

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00QVPGKHU/

It performs well down to about 100MHz.

 

[SouthernRoller]

Any suggestions for a VHF single band antenna?

 

[n5ims]

You are being redirected... will give you gain and made for the frequency range you're looking for. Now if you want to spend the least with an OK antenna, but not great there's always Ed's Antennas. Don't worry about getting a dual band or tri band antenna that covers the frequency range you need since it will still work fine there, just remember that more gain = more signal and when they indicate gain, dBd is 2.15 more than the same value expressed as dBi, and assume dBi if they don't specify how they're expressing their gain numbers.

Also, for receive, most of the VHF-Hi antennas will cover a much wider frequency range than specified. Generally they specify the transmit frequencies where SWR is really important. That said, if you can get your preferred antenna that specifically indicates where you want (such as Ed Fong's ham vs. commercial models) it may be best to get the commercial model since it's closer to your specified range.