Tom wrote:
Hi

I have the Realistic Programmable scanner with 200 programable channels. A
lot of range there like 6 m, 2 m, 70 cm, marine, etc etc etc, wide range.

I want to put up an external antenna that I can hook it up to its own BNC
connection for external antenna. I believe the higher the better.

Which is better to run a bare copper wire longest and highest to connect it
to the BNC center? Or should I use coax and splice the center copper feed to
a certain length from its shield and just get that piece of the antenna the
highest possible? Would it make better receive sense to simply use one leg
of the 16ga copper wire with jacket that I have and use for dipoles?

If I use an adapter (SO239 x BNC) and hook the scanner up to my Alpha Delta
DX-CC which has a lot of exposed copper very high and very long and
available, Is that a better receive antenna than would be another piece of
coax spliced at a certain length and get that up there higher?

Simply for scanner of course, nothing transmit,

Appreciate any comments on this, cheap or otherwise,

For VHF use it is not a good idea to connect a very long bare wire to
the antenna connector, because only a short part of the wire close
to the receiver will be active and thus you have an indoor antenna
even when the wire runs outside.

As you write, the higher the better. So it is better to run a decent
quality coax to outside and construct a simple antenna connected to
the end of it. Generally, the thicker the coax the better, but no
need to over-spend on this.

For receive only, a random length (in the ballpark of 1/2 wavelength)
vertical dipole is good enough. You can make it a true dipole
or you can use some "groundplane" configuration (one quarter wavelength
pointing upward and connected to the coax center, and three or four
quarter wavelength rods slanting downward and connected to the braid).
The latter may be more convenient when you want to put it on top of
a short pole.

Indeed, you can also just strip the end of the coax and fold back the
braid over the end of the coax to form a halfwave dipole, and put
the whole thing in a plastic tube.

When looking inside commercially available scanner antennas, you
will often find just a copper wire inside the plastic stick. Often
there has been an attempt to make it more wideband by winding it
in the form of a couple of coils (3 turns or so) every 10 inch or
so, but if that really makes any difference in the results is to
be seen.