Hello All,
I have a BMAXScan 1000 NMO antenna mounted on my chimney (with a base mount/ground plane) with LMR cable connected to it. I have a cell phone tower about 3 streets away right in line with my antenna. Since I have lived here for 3 years I have noticed when I try to receive distant 800MHz trunked systems on my outside antenna they are all scratchy. This is a constant problem so I don't think it's pager intermod because wouldn't that cause any interference to be intermittent? I.E. the transmissions would come in clear until the pager transmitter kicked in? I can use just my Radio Shack Handheld 800MHz antenna and pick up one of the same distant trunked systems without it being scratchy. I have also noticed driving in my car (which has the same antenna in a mobile mount) the systems are scratchy even locally right around my neighborhood until I get away from the cell tower. I have used the Attenuator on my scanners and it helps with the scratchy sounding comms some but then the signal strength gets too low to pick up some of the trunked systems. I get pretty good signal strength showing on these systems without the attenuator but the actual voice is scratchy. The other thing I've noticed is I can walk out in the backyard with my handheld and if it gets in line of sight with the tower it also becomes scratchy.
I also have an issue on some VHF and UHF frequencies. Since I moved here there are some frequencies I no longer am able to receive that I did in my other location about 5 miles away. One of them is a Fire Dispatch in the 460 MHz range. Yesterday I was at my firehouse which is only about 1.5 miles away from my current residence and we have an external antenna there. I decided to try that out on my scanner and I picked up that same frequency loud and clear and with full bars. This really made me start thinking about this interference issue again....I should be able to get that frequency here. I know that this cell tower is the source of my problem but I don't know what the problem is or if I can fix it. I've been just trying to live with it but now I am wondering what else I am missing out on because this is actually the best antenna setup I've ever had. I just had a basic discone with RG-58 cable at my old location. Now I have in my opinion a pretty good multi-band antenna and great coax so I'm kinda disappointed in my results. My guess is that intermod is not the problem because I'm not hearing bleed-over and the problem isn't intermittent...it is a constant issue like some sort of transmissions are constantly blanketing my location causing my reception to suffer. I have searched the 152-153 range, 158-160, and 482 range for pager transmissions and found some but I haven't found anything that is constantly broadcasting or that is really strong on the S-meter.
Any ideas of things I can try or what this might be? Thanks!
Brandon
I have a BMAXScan 1000 NMO antenna mounted on my chimney (with a base mount/ground plane) with LMR cable connected to it. I have a cell phone tower about 3 streets away right in line with my antenna. Since I have lived here for 3 years I have noticed when I try to receive distant 800MHz trunked systems on my outside antenna they are all scratchy. This is a constant problem so I don't think it's pager intermod because wouldn't that cause any interference to be intermittent? I.E. the transmissions would come in clear until the pager transmitter kicked in? I can use just my Radio Shack Handheld 800MHz antenna and pick up one of the same distant trunked systems without it being scratchy. I have also noticed driving in my car (which has the same antenna in a mobile mount) the systems are scratchy even locally right around my neighborhood until I get away from the cell tower. I have used the Attenuator on my scanners and it helps with the scratchy sounding comms some but then the signal strength gets too low to pick up some of the trunked systems. I get pretty good signal strength showing on these systems without the attenuator but the actual voice is scratchy. The other thing I've noticed is I can walk out in the backyard with my handheld and if it gets in line of sight with the tower it also becomes scratchy.
I also have an issue on some VHF and UHF frequencies. Since I moved here there are some frequencies I no longer am able to receive that I did in my other location about 5 miles away. One of them is a Fire Dispatch in the 460 MHz range. Yesterday I was at my firehouse which is only about 1.5 miles away from my current residence and we have an external antenna there. I decided to try that out on my scanner and I picked up that same frequency loud and clear and with full bars. This really made me start thinking about this interference issue again....I should be able to get that frequency here. I know that this cell tower is the source of my problem but I don't know what the problem is or if I can fix it. I've been just trying to live with it but now I am wondering what else I am missing out on because this is actually the best antenna setup I've ever had. I just had a basic discone with RG-58 cable at my old location. Now I have in my opinion a pretty good multi-band antenna and great coax so I'm kinda disappointed in my results. My guess is that intermod is not the problem because I'm not hearing bleed-over and the problem isn't intermittent...it is a constant issue like some sort of transmissions are constantly blanketing my location causing my reception to suffer. I have searched the 152-153 range, 158-160, and 482 range for pager transmissions and found some but I haven't found anything that is constantly broadcasting or that is really strong on the S-meter.
Any ideas of things I can try or what this might be? Thanks!
Brandon
