I'm using a RS through the glass scanner antenna and I guess it works OK but I'm missing a lot of traffic. What would be a good mobile NMO mount antenna for around 150 mhz?
I'm using a RS through the glass scanner antenna and I guess it works OK but I'm missing a lot of traffic. What would be a good mobile NMO mount antenna for around 150 mhz?
Any antenna that is cut for the specific bandwidth you are monitoring will show a huge difference over an all-band antenna. Especially if it is a ground plane antenna, and not a through-glass. You would most likely be able to get by with something as simple as a cheap quarter-wave, unity gain whip that is about 18 inches long. If UHF and higher frequencies are also a concern, then the Holy Grail would be a quality dual-band antenna like the Maxrad 5/8 wave. Probably your best bet would be what I use, which is a dual band (UHF 70cm/VHF 2m) Ham antenna, which are readily available everywhere at reasonable prices. They do quite well on the public safety bands, and are available in a greater variety of styles than commercial antennae.
Thanks! I'm just monitoring PS freqs. on the mobile. I pick up a lot of traffic but a lot of times I can hear the car talking to dispatch and can't pick up dispatch or the other way around.
I was goung to do a permanent trunk mount. Any specific antenna you could recommend?
If all out performance is your primary goal, then the one I linked is about as good as it gets. Although, you'd get similar performance from a comparable Ham antenna. I have both the above antenna and the ANLI AT-2 ham antenna, which I think is a particularly good choice. It performs comparable to the Maxrad, but is much more compact and aesthetically pleasing on a passenger car.
My Comet SBB-2 NMO attached to my Yaesu Ham radio beats out the scanner on clarity and range of reception every single time. Ham radios are also known for being a little better for FM monitoring than scanners, generally speaking.
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