In article U060d.158329$Fg5.72937@attbi_s53, "Jeff" oldog@(nospam)
mchsi.com says...
This is what you want. Will blow away about any other omni antenna out
there. Light years ahead of a discone.
http://users.cis.net/kingpop/Scanner/Scantenna.htm
BDK
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Not quite light years ahead of a discone. Last year I put up a discone
on one side of my house and a ST 2 on the other side, fed them both with
RG 6U double shielded. Had them feeding a Yaesu VR 5000 alternately.
The discone was the one that had the vertical element on top.
On 30-50 I could tell no difference between the 2. But I could use
the discone on 6 meter fm with a 1.9-1 swr. on 148-170 they appeared
to be the same. On some freqs the ST 2 was a tad, and I mean a tad
better. ON other signals in VHF (i.e.144mhz ssb amateur) the discone
picked up distant ssb chatter while the ST 2 picked up nothing. On the
discone I can use on 2 mtr. fm with almost a flat swr. On 440-470 they
apeared to be the same for all intent. Although I can use the discone on
440 fm with a 1.5-1 or so swr. On the 470-512 area there is nothing to
listen to around here so thats a wash. But on 800-912mhz the discone
worked quite well and is somewhat resonant there, while the ST 2
seemed to be about deaf in this area. If you live in an area that gets
freezing rain and wind, even the new improved ST 2 will not last. Its
too fragile. I have never had a discone come down. After my tests I took
down the ST 2 and sold it, and still have up the discone. There is no
substitute for being resonant at various points on a freq plot. The ST 2
basically fakes the radio as far as impededance with the 300 ohm
transformer. It hardly blows the discone out of the water, like I hear so
often. Advertising hype.
Jeff
I havent seen the heavier duty one in person, so I can't say for sure
how strong it is, but a discone really truly blows as an antenna. A
ringo ranger 2 works pretty well, better than any of the discones I have
had on most freqs. I wonder if the Yaesu was hearing better on the
discone because it was desensitizing. I had one here for a while, and it
was a disaster, intermod and hash all over, and so I sold it to a friend
who lives 20 miles from any really big town. Works good out there..
Right now I have two Scantennas in the attic, along with a discone and a
home brew ground plane cut for 161 Mhz (trains), The discone is in the
"sweet spot" in the attic (it was there first), and until I bought the
first Scantenna, I thought it was ok. I even replaced the original coax
on the discone with 9913 and it was a tiny bit better on 800, but wasn't
anywhere else. I have the discone connected to my BC9000, as it's better
on that antenna, since it seems most prone to losing it's cool due to a
nearby TV station's huge signal. The Pro 2005 and 2006 on the scantennas
will both easily beat the 9000 in every way but scan speed, on any
antenna.
If I had my choice as one single antenna to use, I would probably pick
the home built ground plane (I can build one that will last forever),
with the ringo a close second. The scantenna's next only due to it's
fragility. I may build a HD one myself one of these days..
As far as impedance goes, it's pretty meaingless for receivers, loss is
much more of a problem.
I need to find a climber to change the coax on my ringo, and put up
another discone as a backup to it, for 2M/440. I don't want to get
ripped off for 300 bucks like I did 10 years ago, 25 of it was for
coming over the border into my town. That 150 yards cost 4 times as much
as the ground plane I made the day before cost me!
BDK