Use of SP1300 combiner/splitter

[fredva]

Does anybody have experience using a SP-1300 combiner/splitter for scanners that are a good distance (40-50 feet) apart? The suggested use I've read is to plug the splitter into the back of one scanner and then run a 3' or 6' jumper coax to another scanner. But for a couple of reasons, I would like to add a second scanner to another end of the house, and hooking both to the same external antenna via a splitter would seem to be the simplest solution, if that is feasible. To do this, I would rather have the splitter outside at the base of the antenna, connect to the existing scanner via a BNC adapter and short coax, and run a 50' coax through the crawlspace to the second scanner. That way, I won't be running coax through the living space of the house.

So my questions are - is anybody else using the SP-1300 for scanners that are that far apart and if so, is the reception still good? Should I use a low-loss coax such as LMR-400 instead of RG-58 between the splitter and the scanners? Would the SP-1300 be vulnerable to the weather?

This is for a relative's home, and I should mention that their local fire/ems/rescue transmissions aren't real powerful, so significant signal loss is something I want to avoid. I also would like to avoid buying an expensive multi-coupler. So right now, I think my options are a cheaper splitter or a second antenna.

 

[bush_man]

Does anybody have experience using a SP-1300 combiner/splitter for scanners that are a good distance (40-50 feet) apart? The suggested use I've read is to plug the splitter into the back of one scanner and then run a 3' or 6' jumper coax to another scanner. But for a couple of reasons, I would like to add a second scanner to another end of the house, and hooking both to the same external antenna via a splitter would seem to be the simplest solution, if that is feasible. To do this, I would rather have the splitter outside at the base of the antenna, connect to the existing scanner via a BNC adapter and short coax, and run a 50' coax through the crawlspace to the second scanner. That way, I won't be running coax through the living space of the house.

So my questions are - is anybody else using the SP-1300 for scanners that are that far apart and if so, is the reception still good? Should I use a low-loss coax such as LMR-400 instead of RG-58 between the splitter and the scanners? Would the SP-1300 be vulnerable to the weather?

This is for a relative's home, and I should mention that their local fire/ems/rescue transmissions aren't real powerful, so significant signal loss is something I want to avoid. I also would like to avoid buying an expensive multi-coupler. So right now, I think my options are a cheaper splitter or a second antenna.

I would like to know that same thing. I want to add an antenna to multiple weather radio/alert radios, with only one antenna. And if that works, then I'll add another scanner too.

 

[kb0nly]

Those SP-1300 units seem to have a good reputation online, but not having seen one, taken it apart, tested it, and used it myself, i can't comment specifically on it.

In the case of the weather radios, try a regular old BNC "T" to connect more than one to the antenna and see what happens. I know one guy with four Midland units on the same antenna, using T connectors and jumpers, they all work fine with nice clean audio. The only difference here is that they are listening to a local and very strong tower. We are only 11-12 miles from a 1000w NOAA transmitter site, so you literally have so much signal to work with that they will hear it without a proper antenna, a chunk of wire off the back works.

Combining more than one scanner with T's though is another thing, as most of them throw off birdies and such that the other scanner would hear.

A good Mini-Circuits splitter/combiner is what i'm going to use to put two scanners on one antenna. You can find models that are 10-2000Mhz on eBay for about $30. They have about 30db of separation between ports and an insertion loss of about 3db. If you start looking at them you can type in the model number on the Mini Circuits website and get the full specs of any model you find. There seems to be a flood of good ones on there lately. The average splitter gives you 7-8db of loss, so they are pretty low loss by comparison. And a lot cheaper.

The only drawback is most of them are SMA female. So you have to make up some cables or buy adapters. I plan on making some RG142 jumpers with SMA on one end and BNC on the other, then making a short jumper cable with SMA male to N female for the antenna connection so i can keep my RG8 sized feedline. Right now i have an N female to BNC male jumper to go to the one scanner i have.

 

[ronhl]

SP-1300 Splitters

Does anybody have experience using a SP-1300 combiner/splitter for scanners that are a good distance (40-50 feet) apart? The suggested use I've read is to plug the splitter into the back of one scanner and then run a 3' or 6' jumper coax to another scanner. But for a couple of reasons, I would like to add a second scanner to another end of the house, and hooking both to the same external antenna via a splitter would seem to be the simplest solution, if that is feasible. To do this, I would rather have the splitter outside at the base of the antenna, connect to the existing scanner via a BNC adapter and short coax, and run a 50' coax through the crawlspace to the second scanner. That way, I won't be running coax through the living space of the house.

So my questions are - is anybody else using the SP-1300 for scanners that are that far apart and if so, is the reception still good? Should I use a low-loss coax such as LMR-400 instead of RG-58 between the splitter and the scanners? Would the SP-1300 be vulnerable to the weather?

This is for a relative's home, and I should mention that their local fire/ems/rescue transmissions aren't real powerful, so significant signal loss is something I want to avoid. I also would like to avoid buying an expensive multi-coupler. So right now, I think my options are a cheaper splitter or a second antenna.

I have tested these splitters and posted the results(see the thread " how well do these splitters work?)
These splitters have more loss than one would expect for the buck and adding a long coax run will add even alot more depending on the freq. Also i dont believe these were intended for outside use.