LiveATC Discussion Forums

Air Traffic Monitoring => Listener Forum => Topic started by: smithmi on December 29, 2005, 09:34:18 AM

Title: antennas
Post by: smithmi on December 29, 2005, 09:34:18 AM

I have two antenna things to ask about:

1: I am looking in to buying a Radio Shack "Outdoor VHF-Hi/UHF Scanner Antenna" is that a good buy?

I live about 20 miles away form KABE, but it is hilly I am higher then the airport and I would like to get the aircraft on the ground. Right now I  get :

ground(no aircraft), tower(aircraft) and the Approach(aircraft)

sorry but I have one more thing to ask:

I already have one antenna but I saw some people have 2 I would like to keep both working at the same time but I have only 1 scanner can I hook 2 antennas in to one scanner?

Thank you for your help.

Title: Re: antennas
Post by: Jason on December 29, 2005, 11:28:58 AM

Quote from: smithmi

I have two antenna things to ask about:

1: I am looking in to buying a Radio Shack "Outdoor VHF-Hi/UHF Scanner Antenna" is that a good buy?

It is alright, but a discone might be a better way to go.  I also have an extra one of the antenna you asked about if you'd like me to send it, I'll ship it to you free of cost if it's going towards a new feed.

Quote from: smithmi

I live about 20 miles away form KABE, but it is hilly I am higher then the airport and I would like to get the aircraft on the ground. Right now I  get :

ground(no aircraft), tower(aircraft) and the Approach(aircraft)

sorry but I have one more thing to ask:

I already have one antenna but I saw some people have 2 I would like to keep both working at the same time but I have only 1 scanner can I hook 2 antennas in to one scanner?

Thank you for your help.

Any adapter/power splitter you use will cause loss in the signal.  Most if not all of our feeds receive controllers and pilots.  To receive aircraft, is only a matter of having line-of-site (VHF) with that aircraft.

Thanks,
Jason

Title: antennas
Post by: bcrosby on December 29, 2005, 01:32:10 PM

Im thinking of building this one:

http://www.dxzone.com/cgi-bin/dir/jump2.cgi?ID=9731

Cheap and not a big deal if it doesn't work out.

Title: Antennas
Post by: BMT on December 29, 2005, 02:13:08 PM

I have an antenna like described by BCrosby, it's cut for 225-400. One of my best antennas.

BMT

Title: antennas
Post by: dave on December 29, 2005, 02:58:17 PM

A groundplane is a relatively narrowband antenna...it can not cover 225-400 MHz.  Not that it won't work, but it won't work optimally across that frequency range.  For a receiving application like this, though, it may not matter.  YMMV.

Title: antennas
Post by: bcrosby on December 29, 2005, 09:19:43 PM

yeah, the idea being that you cut the antenna for the SPECIFIC frequency you want, not a range.

The freqs that I am hoping to be able to pick up are within 0.5Mhz to 1Mhz apart, so it should work fine.