Air Traffic Monitoring > Feed Setup Pictures

Scanner Antenna Setup

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KB6HLM:
You may consider building your own 1/4 wave ground plane or even a J-POLE
 The basic math for 1/4 wave antenna is quite simple
1/4 wave = 234 divided by frequency or to arrive at a proper antenna length

If not there are lots of antennas on the market cut just for the airband  personally I would stay away from the so called all bander if your serious about ATC  !

I use the Custom tuned 5/8 wave LARSEN SUPER BASE  http://wingsandwheels.com/page14.htm

I looked around for you to find a cheap well constructed Airband antenna and came up with this one (The Airband J-Pole) $33.00 at http://kb9vbr.com/products.php

Price is right and it looks like he did a nice job !!

Anyone have this antenna ? let us know :-)

73s
Glenn KB6HLM Las Vegas, NV

rbrong:
Youngpilot,

I have this antenna in my attic as I didn't want to fool around with a mast, grounding, etc., etc., outside.  Even at that, it improved my reception here in Reno quite a bit.  My only gripe is that it also increased my interference from nearby FM broadcast towers a lot.  I've ordered a couple of filters from Universal Radio that should fix that problem.

My scanners are a RaidoShack PRO-2052 and an old Uniden Bearcat BC175XL I bought for a few bucks off of eBay.  I use the Bearcat for my LiveATC feed for Reno.

Cheers!

Richard

p.s.  I should add that I live about ten miles from KRNO and I do pick up ATC and aircraft most of the time.  I agree with some of the other posts, too, in that this antenna isn't the perfect fit for the aircraft band.  Considering the price, though, it's a decent option if you're an antenna idiot like me.

jerry814:
I went with a commercial antenna, an ASP635 (Andrew) groundplane antenna. Cost about $110.00 and works fantastic for airband only (cut to 124MHz).

jerry814

jerry814:
My posting was lacking in several areas: I assumed all knew about such things, and was wrong. After working for Motorola for 39 years, I should have realized most for our members do not have this experience. This assumption will not be repeated in the future - my bad, sorry.

The commercial grade antenna, an ASP635 ground-plane will have to go outside as the attic attenuation inside a wood-frame house is far greater that some websites say it shoud be.  Be very, very carefull of "facts" on websites, and be especialyl carefull of Ham Radio sites, as some are totally BS.

And I cry your pardon to the Hams that really know what they are doing, but most do not have 39 years of Motorola Public Safety & P25 day-to-day experience that I have. And the "Hams" are going to blast away at me, but they need to do some homework before the blasting begins; I did my homework.

Jerry814

martgenia:

--- Quote from: KB6HLM on November 22, 2007, 08:32:49 PM ---I am sorry to say that this antenna proforms very poorly on the aircraft Frqs !

You would be much better off making your own 1/4 wave

It makes a good scanner antenna but its not cut right for the airband


73s
Glenn KB6HLM Las Vegas, NV

--- End quote ---

This isn´t true, I have three set up and they perform ok, but depending on radio receiver thell perform even better: with a Bearcat BC895 and this antenna, I can get planes 80 miles out (sometimes) but 50 miles always...

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