On Saturday, May 4, 2013 2:26:09 PM UTC+2, 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,


thanks


73s

If you want to receive from say 145 MHz to 500 MHz, I would go for a descent cable (foam dielectric) if the length exceeds say 5m. Below this length I would just use standard RG 58. A bare or insulated wire into the center of the antenna input will not work well.

I would not recommend any thin wire antennas (including whips) as these are narrow band, so it will only work well on a single frequency band (for example VHF airband, but not together with VHF Marine) . When you want to buy something, I would go for the discone antenna if you really want to receive from 145 MHz up to around 500 MHz.

A wide band antenna in combination with strong signals nearby may result in overload to the RF input circuitry of your scanner. You may arrive into a situation that a better antenna will give worse results due to overloading the RF input circuitry. If you have limited or no experience, you may not recognize this.

There are other solutions: If you want to receive a limited amount of frequency bands (for example 2 m and 70 cm), you can buy dual-band antennas for certain frequency bands. Other option is to use separate antennas for each band, but you cannot connect them all together to one cable without a special frequency selective combiner.

Wim
PA3DJS
www.tetech.nl
remove abc first in case of PM