Will This Make A Good Antenna For This Radio?

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Ubbe

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Any outdoor antenna will outperform an indoor antenna.
I'm interested to know how this antenna are designed when reading its advertised features:

It has a single element for reception on the 28mhz-220 Mhz range
A ground plane element for each band is enclosed in the PVC tube and completes the antenna. Many scanner antennas sold on Ebay never mention the groundplane, because their antenna does NOT have a built in groundplane, which seriously affects the performance. The Super Scanner Two XC has 4 separate groundplanes, one for each of the 4 separate antennas!!


/Ubbe
 

mmckenna

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I was afraid of that after I bought it, mmckenna! But it is 4 pieces of cable

OK, so 4 different lengths of stripped back cable for the radiators and 4 different lengths for the ground. But it's a multi element dipole antenna stuffed in a PVC pipe. The seller talks about "ground plane", but in reality it doesn't have one.

Seriously, you can make your own for about 10 bucks.
 

vagrant

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After you try that antenna you may want to give a discone antenna a try.
1. A discone is a reasonably wideband antenna which basically means is covers a wide frequency range.
2. The marketing people selling discones advertise that they cover 25 ~ 1300 MHz, and although they do they typically perform poorly at the upper and lower end. Still, that's usually okay for most of us.
3. A discone typically works well enough where most of us listen to transmissions like aircraft, police, fire, rail, business, amateur, military etc.
4. You can find discone antennas from ranging in price from $50 to $700. Are the $700 discone antennas better, possibly but not positively. Is the difference worth $650 more...absolutely not.

I personally have a $50 and $150 discone antenna. I could not tell you which one I was using if you switched them. Usually...hopefully...with more money spent on the antenna, one hopes the antenna is more robust as well to handle snow/ice etc.

Use the most expensive coaxial cable you can afford. Many will recommend LMR-400 and I use it, but I also use RG6 and it works well enough too.

When you mount the antenna, get it above the apex of your roof providing it with a 360 degree field of view, so to speak.

* By the way, you are not the first person to purchase a poor performing antenna. You will not be the last. We live we learn. Have fun!
 

217

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But, It works with all modes: Analog or Digital transmissions. :p


OK, so 4 different lengths of stripped back cable for the radiators and 4 different lengths for the ground. But it's a multi element dipole antenna stuffed in a PVC pipe. The seller talks about "ground plane", but in reality it doesn't have one.

Seriously, you can make your own for about 10 bucks.
 
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