Author Topic: Lets try this again... Delta! Tango! Whiskey!  (Read 16102 times)

Offline kc135dood

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Lets try this again... Delta! Tango! Whiskey!
« on: April 13, 2011, 08:11:01 PM »
Trying to get the DTW feed up again, I'm no more than 7 miles from DTW, with my scanner and default antenna I have picked up many airplanes landing on the 21R/3L and 21L/3R.  Also the 9/27 Runways too.  I'll have to look into building my own antenna and mounting it in either my attic or outside.  In my attic, it would be almost three stories high.  While mounting it outside it would be closer to 15 at the base of the antenna.  I have bought some new computers and typically do leave one running nearly 24/7 and don't mind it.  So I would definitely like to put it to good use and service!  I have, I think all that is required to run a feed other than an antenna.

Could someone lead me in the direction to the most true, best working home-made antenna?  I know there are a bunch of great topics here and there that I can easily search, but I wouldn't mind YOUR input here!

Thank you very much!

DL



Offline K5PAT

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Re: Lets try this again... Delta! Tango! Whiskey!
« Reply #1 on: April 13, 2011, 08:41:34 PM »
Not exactly homemade, but I have had very good results with these antennas and they are not expensive.
http://www.arrowantennas.com/gp/gp146.html
http://www.jpole-antenna.com/

Here is a previous post from Dave with a homemade yagi design. I am using this one on my ZHU feed and it's working well receiving a distant ARTCC transmitting site.
http://www.liveatc.net/forums/listener-forum/airband-yagi-antenna-designs/

Offline kc135dood

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Re: Lets try this again... Delta! Tango! Whiskey!
« Reply #2 on: April 13, 2011, 09:05:38 PM »
It looks like the Dual Band Ground Plane antenna is extremely familiar because it is what we have on the tower where I work.  I didn't know they weren't over $100!  I am also familiar with the J-Pole because it is what my local Civil Air Patrol squadron has!  I just didn't know if they were the best to work with for this use.  Since what they have at my work is 100% air band, then I shall go ahead with the Arrow Antenna Arrow Plane.

Thank you for the fast feedback, K5PAT!

Offline joeyb747

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Re: Lets try this again... Delta! Tango! Whiskey!
« Reply #3 on: April 13, 2011, 09:47:00 PM »
Looking forward to a KDTW feed!   8-)

Offline kc135dood

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Re: Lets try this again... Delta! Tango! Whiskey!
« Reply #4 on: April 13, 2011, 09:59:49 PM »
Glad to hear it, I really want to make this work.  Don't ask me when it's going to be on, live.  I'm not absolutely sure, but soon enough... I'll have the money to buy one of those antennas and a weekend to put it all together.

Offline TVNewsChopper

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Re: Lets try this again... Delta! Tango! Whiskey!
« Reply #5 on: April 13, 2011, 10:19:57 PM »
I look forward to your KDTW feed.  I wish I was close enough to Metro to provide a feed, but no luck here.  Thanks for you efforts!

Offline dave

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Re: Lets try this again... Delta! Tango! Whiskey!
« Reply #6 on: April 13, 2011, 11:47:35 PM »
Do yourself a favor - buy an antenna if you have neither the tools nor the supplies to build one...get a GP126 from:

http://www.arrowantennas.com/

$36 - much less than the cost of your time and tooling up to build something

Unless you want to learn about antennas...in which case definitely build your own!  It's fun and educational.

Contact me when you reach the next step or need any other help.

Dave

Offline kc135dood

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Re: Lets try this again... Delta! Tango! Whiskey!
« Reply #7 on: April 14, 2011, 01:39:51 PM »
Dave,

Thank you for your help, I will probably purchase the GP126 soon.

On another note, at work, funny thing... instead of the antenna, which looks very similar to the Arrow Antennas is not mounted on top of the tower, but inside, and sideways!?!

It points however, directly towards the terminal which the majority of the aircraft we talk to are at.

I guess mounting will be in testing once I get it, to see the best possible location and position.

Thanks

DL

Offline K5PAT

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Re: Lets try this again... Delta! Tango! Whiskey!
« Reply #8 on: April 14, 2011, 05:27:02 PM »
On another note, at work, funny thing... instead of the antenna, which looks very similar to the Arrow Antennas is not mounted on top of the tower, but inside, and sideways!?!

It points however, directly towards the terminal which the majority of the aircraft we talk to are at.

That is not a very good idea unless.......

Reasons to mount a ground plane antenna inside tower:
1) Doesn't know any better. :|
2) Lightning protection :-o
3)Received signal is so strong that it doesn't matter.  :-D
4) Can't get anyone to climb to the top. :x
5) The only place left on a crowded tower. :wink:

If you look at the radiation pattern of a ground plane antenna, minimum signal strength occurs at 90 degrees from the horizontal, or directly above the antenna. So if your work GP is pointed horizontally at the signal source, it is receiving directly off the top at minimum signal strength. Not very effective.  But if it's only used to send/receive across the field, it won't make much difference, the receiver(s) will still be saturated. Transmit SWR, however, will be high with all that tower metal near the radiator, making for inefficient power loss both TX and RX.
    If you get a chance to ask someone in the know, I would be interested to hear their reason to mount it that way.

Offline Squawk 7700

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Re: Lets try this again... Delta! Tango! Whiskey!
« Reply #9 on: April 14, 2011, 10:13:57 PM »
Having the GP126 myself I can highly recommend it. The GP126 1/4 Wave Ground Plane for the Aircraft Band from Arrowantennas.com is simple in construction, has quality fit and finish, and an excellent performer. It's well worth the price.

If you like experimenting and building your own antennas there are plenty of designs out there. Here is a ground plane antenna I put together with assembly pictures http://flic.kr/s/aHsjtLaGzh
but like Dave said it might cost more to build one? I agree.

Buy an Arrow now, then at your leisure build your own antenna. At least this way you'll have a known working reference antenna to compare your home built with.  :-D

Looking forward to your feed.

Ken


Offline kc135dood

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Re: Lets try this again... Delta! Tango! Whiskey!
« Reply #10 on: April 15, 2011, 12:08:42 AM »
Thanks again guys,

For all the helpful information.  I'll surely purchase the GP126 first.  Then definitely look into experimenting with construction of different antennas.  I'll ask tomorrow about the mounting of the antenna.  The tower is located roughly a quarter of a mile, maybe 600 feet even, from the terminal.

Although I should wait till the single feed is up to ask questions like this... here goes.  What would it take to create multiple feeds.  Of course, more scanners?  Off of one antenna?  Squawk 7700, what is your setup like... do you have like an entire room set up and a antenna tower or something?  I am really curious on that!
« Last Edit: April 15, 2011, 12:43:12 PM by kc135dood »

Offline Squawk 7700

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Re: Lets try this again... Delta! Tango! Whiskey!
« Reply #11 on: April 16, 2011, 01:56:53 AM »
Although I should wait till the single feed is up to ask questions like this... here goes.  What would it take to create multiple feeds.  Of course, more scanners?  Off of one antenna?  Squawk 7700, what is your setup like... do you have like an entire room set up and a antenna tower or something?  I am really curious on that!

I live on a third story unit, my antennas are mounted off the balcony. There are eight scanners fed by two antennas. One is the Arrow GP126 and the other is a DPD Antenna http://www.dpdproductions.com/page_vhf_air.html#vhfairout. My PCs are running on Windows XP SP3 with USB Audio devices to accept the audio out of the scanners, and the line in which the PC has.
http://www.griffintechnology.com/products/imic
http://www.behringer.com/EN/Products/UCA202.aspx
Feel free to PM me and certainly Dave and the others on this forum will help you get your feed up and running. :-)

Ken

Offline dave

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Re: Lets try this again... Delta! Tango! Whiskey!
« Reply #12 on: April 16, 2011, 09:38:33 AM »
Although I should wait till the single feed is up to ask questions like this... here goes.  What would it take to create multiple feeds.  Of course, more scanners?  Off of one antenna?  Squawk 7700, what is your setup like... do you have like an entire room set up and a antenna tower or something?  I am really curious on that!

Get a single receiver up with good reception before worry about multiple feeds.  It can become overwhelming and disorganized very quickly.  I will help you get it all going.  Contact me privately when you have an antenna and single receiver set up and we'll go from there.

Thanks!

Offline contrails

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Re: Lets try this again... Delta! Tango! Whiskey!
« Reply #13 on: April 17, 2011, 10:16:57 PM »
Will be great having a feed back up for DTW...

...thank you!

Offline kc135dood

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Re: Lets try this again... Delta! Tango! Whiskey!
« Reply #14 on: April 18, 2011, 02:47:20 PM »
When I get it, I'll get back to you.

I was looking through the Mp3s, Wavs, and found one from DTW.  I didn't know there was a feed before hand.  How long was it active?


Update 5/3/2011 - I didn't want to reply and bump this thread up to the top without something positive.  I'll be ordering the antenna most certainly this weekend!
« Last Edit: May 03, 2011, 06:41:41 PM by kc135dood »

Offline contrails

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Re: Lets try this again... Delta! Tango! Whiskey!
« Reply #15 on: April 18, 2011, 07:02:50 PM »
Looks like it was shut down around late 2005...(sheesh...was it that long ago???)

http://www.liveatc.net/forums/listener-forum/dtw-feed-t1449/

I did a DTW forum search here(basically a newbie myself)....looks like you kicked around the idea of putting up a feed (last year?) but had various issues with scanner/computer....guess you've addressed those.  Not sure what model scanner you will use if you decide to put up a feed....I do know there are many very good(inexpensive)base units to be had on Craigslist, Ebay, etc., as many have switched to digital receivers with Fire, Police, others going in that direction.

(I picked up a Pro-2006 for $10 at a garage sale last year...works great...but Lapeer Cty will be going digital soon too... :x)

Wish I could setup a feed here, as the traffic overhead(mostly East coast flights heading to Chicago)can get interesting...unfortunately I only get the aircraft(no ATC)where I live(about 40 north of Detroit). I understand the ATC outlet(RCAG?)for the route freq.(133.87)is around MBS....too far from here I suppose, even with a monster antenna.

Anyway(should you decide to do so)....good luck with the feed setup. Would be a great addition to the other generous providers here at LiveATC.

Offline kc135dood

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Re: Lets try this again... Delta! Tango! Whiskey!
« Reply #16 on: April 19, 2011, 08:37:33 AM »
Very good research Contrails,  yeah, sometime last year or somewhere that is true.  I bought the Uniden BC346XT and have been very happy with it.  I originally had the Radio Shack Pro-2054 I think and at first didn't know at all how to use a scanner so I ended up taking it back.  So dumb of me, I should have kept that, though that was back three or four years ago.

Yesterday I took my scanner in my car and listened to 118.400 for DTW and picked it up quite well near the airport around 4-5 miles.  Then later in the day a plane was coming into land on 3R and I don't remember where the plane was but line-of-sight surely surprised me because I had to of been double the distance of what I live from DTW compared to me in the car to the airplane!

Offline kc135dood

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Re: Lets try this again... Delta! Tango! Whiskey!
« Reply #17 on: June 19, 2011, 11:53:44 PM »
Ordered the GP126 today...


Happy Fathers Day!

Offline dave

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Re: Lets try this again... Delta! Tango! Whiskey!
« Reply #18 on: June 22, 2011, 03:20:04 PM »
Ordered the GP126 today...


Happy Fathers Day!

Awesome...stay in touch.  Email me privately once you have the antenna installed and we will go over some details.  (Not here on the forum).

Offline contrails

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Re: Lets try this again... Delta! Tango! Whiskey!
« Reply #19 on: June 27, 2011, 12:37:09 PM »
Thank you for the DTW feed....sounds great!

(Wonder if the "see ya!" controller is still there?)

Offline joeyb747

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Re: Lets try this again... Delta! Tango! Whiskey!
« Reply #20 on: June 27, 2011, 09:25:03 PM »
 8-)  8-)  8-)  8-)  :-D  :-D  :-D  :-D

Enjoying the feed right now!! Sounds GREAT!!  :mrgreen:
« Last Edit: June 27, 2011, 10:02:17 PM by joeyb747 »

Offline EdmontonFireRadio

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Re: Lets try this again... Delta! Tango! Whiskey!
« Reply #21 on: June 30, 2011, 03:05:28 PM »
The feed shows online but haven't heard anything for more than 5 min. Fairly unusual for the middle of the day. The feed owner may need to check their radio to make sure something hasn't been disconnected.

Offline dave

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Re: Lets try this again... Delta! Tango! Whiskey!
« Reply #22 on: June 30, 2011, 03:15:30 PM »
The feed shows online but haven't heard anything for more than 5 min. Fairly unusual for the middle of the day. The feed owner may need to check their radio to make sure something hasn't been disconnected.

This feed will be in a state of transition over the next few days and there may be some outages here and there.