Tv antenna for scanner

[GKolo]

I have seen some post that a TV antenna has been used for scanner reception, Has anyone had any luck with this for VHF/UHF reception ?

 

[k8tmk]

TV antennas are horizontally-polarized and highly directional. Most, if not everything, of want you listen to on a scanner is vertically-polarized.

It won't hurt anything to use a TV antenna with a scanner, but due to the cross-polarization you will experience very poor reception from anything but very strong signals.

And, if you use a splitter to tap off the signal from an antenna that is still used by a TV set, you will have two problems. One problem is about 6 db of loss (this is equivalent to cutting the signal strength in half twice). The other problem is that you will likely pick up a lot of oscillations from the TV set when it is on.

Randy

 

[kb2vxa]

There is more than enough information available so why start yet another repeat of what has been discussed over and over already? You said it yourself, yet you ask for answers already given time and time again... WHY?

 

[n5ims]

I would say that using a TV antenna for scanner use is not recommended, but if you've got one up it wouldn't hurt to see how it would perform for you. If it does what you want then fine, use it. If you're looking to put something up however, I'd pick something that is designed for scanner or communication use instead.

 

[gewecke]

I use my phillips DTV antenna which is mounted below my diamond X50A on my 996xt on occasion and it works great,but as said if it's not vertically polarized it may not work as well. I use rg 6 quad shield cable with it at the 30' level and can hear most vhf/uhf tg's and some 800/900 tg's up to about 40-45 miles away.
n9zas

 

[DX949]

There is more than enough information available so why start yet another repeat of what has been discussed over and over already? You said it yourself, yet you ask for answers already given time and time again... WHY?

And your not a repeat Warren ? why are you so crusty ? WHY ?

 

[kb2vxa]

Crust comes with age, I come from a time when children were taught to think for themselves. It was called "initiative" and each subject on our report cards had a grade for it. It took you long enough to ask, a good sign, at least you took the time trying to figure me out on your own.... WUHAHAHAHAAA!
(;->)

 

[Alexk13421]

I am using a wide band indoor center loaded Radio Shack scanner antenna on my Home Patrol scanner. I am using this outside the window, attached to the scanner with simple wire (NOT coax). I'm getting 50 mile range out of it right now. This set up is far less then optimum for me. Being that I have to be careful of what antennas I use, because of the land lord, I am going to upgrade to a magnet mount scanner antenna. I think it's reasonable for me to expect 50 to 75 mile range from an actual scanner antenna set up. If your receiving 40 to 45 miles on a out door TV antenna I would actually be expecting more range then that. I don't know how high your antenna is mounted, or if it's facing away from what you are receiving on your scanner, but 40 to 45 miles is what I was expecting out of the duck antenna. Keep in mind my antenna is just a step up from a duck, but with the signal loss I'm getting from using low grade regular wire for a feed line, my signal reception is getting cut in half easily.
Is my thinking correct or have I simply found a match that is working? Am I expecting too much from a magnet mount antenna to pull in signals up to 80 miles away?