I need some help choosing an antenna for my
base station police scanner.
any suggestion (pros or cons) would be appreciated

I agree with Nelson. If your looking to listen to your local PD then the
discone is the way to go. Wide bandwidth. Easy to install.



"jaffo1" wrote in message
.rogers.com...
I need some help choosing an antenna for my
base station police scanner.
any suggestion (pros or cons) would be appreciated

I know a few have suggested discones....but they are really for
horizontalradiation, you need vertical polarisation for police.
Try a 1/2 wave dipole, easy to make.

"jaffo1" wrote in message
.rogers.com...
I need some help choosing an antenna for my
base station police scanner.
any suggestion (pros or cons) would be appreciated

Mac Tabak wrote:

I know a few have suggested discones....but they are really for
horizontalradiation, you need vertical polarisation for police.
Try a 1/2 wave dipole, easy to make.

Um, discone *is* vertical.

Page 7-29 ARRL Antenna Book, 20th Ed.
--
"One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem,
see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable
words." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"Donald K" wrote in message
...
Mac Tabak wrote:

I know a few have suggested discones....but they are really for
horizontalradiation, you need vertical polarisation for police.
Try a 1/2 wave dipole, easy to make.

Um, discone *is* vertical.

Page 7-29 ARRL Antenna Book, 20th Ed.
--
"One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem,
see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable
words." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Yep, I sense a little bit of confusion entering the eqation here. The
Discone is vertically polarised, whereas typically a dipole is horizontally
polarised - particularly on the lower frequencies. For example on 80m (3.5
MHz), a dipole would typically be around 20 metres in length, which is not
the easiest antenna to string upright, so most poeple will put them up
horizontally. On the VHF and UHF bands, a dipole can be setup for either
vertical or horizontal polarisation and as stated a couple of postings
above, they are pretty easy to construct.




Matt

In article ers.com,
says...
I need some help choosing an antenna for my
base station police scanner.
any suggestion (pros or cons) would be appreciated



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

BDK wrote:

In article ers.com,
says...
I need some help choosing an antenna for my
base station police scanner.
any suggestion (pros or cons) would be appreciated



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

Is there any analysis of this antenna on the web that I might look at?

-Donald
--
"One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem,
see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable
words." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

In article ,
says...
BDK wrote:

In article ers.com,
says...
I need some help choosing an antenna for my
base station police scanner.
any suggestion (pros or cons) would be appreciated



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

Is there any analysis of this antenna on the web that I might look at?

-Donald


It's just a heavy duty version of a Scantenna, AKA Monitenna, that RS
and I think it was Channel Master sold for years. I have two of them in
the box ready to go. The original is a flimsy antenna that works great.
They just don't hold up in the winter at all. I had a discone on my
tower until recently when the standoff broke in a storm. The
Scantenna/Monitenna in my attic was better on every freq, and it was 30
feet lower. A ground plane made with an SO-239 connector and some coat
hangers will blow a discone away. A total waste of money, unless you
want it as a back up antenna to transmit on....

BDK

BDK wrote:

A ground plane made with an SO-239 connector and some coat
hangers will blow a discone away. A total waste of money, unless you
want it as a back up antenna to transmit on....

I guess I've have different experiences than you.

Is it possible that there is a strong signal source close to you that
was desensing your receiver when using the discone and you've created a
"high pass" filter with your tuned 1/4 wave?

-D
--
"One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem,
see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable
words." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

In article ,
says...
BDK wrote:

A ground plane made with an SO-239 connector and some coat
hangers will blow a discone away. A total waste of money, unless you
want it as a back up antenna to transmit on....

I guess I've have different experiences than you.

Is it possible that there is a strong signal source close to you that
was desensing your receiver when using the discone and you've created a
"high pass" filter with your tuned 1/4 wave?

-D


LOL, it seems to work the same way connected to all my
scanners/receivers...

That the discone(s) blows is a much better theory..IMO

BDK