My Scanner Update

Art,

In the "old" days of scanning when people (like you and me were young) often purchased telescoping antennas, the way you determined how long of an antenna you needed was using a formula of:

LENGTH(FT) = 234 / FREQ(in MHZ)

EX: 234/160.950 = 1.45 FT (17.5 in) - that is for Norfolk Southern Road Channel

EX: 234/119.100 = 1.96 FT (23.5 in) - that is the Control Tower Channel for the local airport

So, I used to set the length for AIR BAND to 22 inches and the length for RAILROADS to 18 inches.

The length of 40 inches matches a frequency of approximately 70 MHZ.

You might want to play with these numbers and see if they still work for your new scanner, they used to work well for the old Radio Shack and Bearcat scanners.

That’s a good point, Dudley.

Art, what you would be doing here is “tuning” your antenna to the proper length for the frequencies you want to receive. Even though the antenna will end up shorter, it will respond better to the frequencies in the VHF band at a 17” to 17.5” length.

My new BNC W100RX antenna has calibrations on the base segment for the optimal length for each band, but I initially opened it up full length just to experiment a little. Seems to bring in the 800 UHF freqs  as well as the VHF rail and air freqs fully extended, but I will try adjustimg (tuning) the segments.

Does the scanner have a "radio ground"?  That helps you have higher signal strength.

Not sure, but is that the same principle as a "ground plane" when a mobile unit is used in an auto with an external antenna? The metal body of the car acts as part of the antenna system.

@Tinplate Art posted:

Not sure, but is that the same principle as a "ground plane" when a mobile unit is used in an auto with an external antenna? The metal body of the car acts as part of the antenna system.

Yes.

Got it, now how would I "ground" my radio? Place a sheet of metal under it?