Attic Antennas

[cbehr91]

For most of this year, I have been running a Yaesu FT-2800R with a simple RadioShack ground plane scanner antenna in the attic, and I am more than happy with the results. My coverage to my north and south is excellent. I can pick up dispatcher radios more than 50 miles in both directions and trains up to about 30.

The only issue I'm having is that I am not picking up anything to the west very well. The NS Dayton District meanders through relatively flat, rural terrain in that direction and I struggle to get 15 miles of range in that direction and my line of sight is excellent. I get sporadic coverage of a detector 12 air miles away. Sometimes I don't hear it at all and other times it's so clear it sounds like it's in the driveway. The only obstruction that I can think of that would be affecting reception in that direction is the house next door. What I'm thinking of maybe doing now is putting a big gain Yagi or half square beam and pointing it such so that the house next to me isn't in the way and seeing if that helps my reception of the NS Dayton District and the I&O in Springfield to the west any.

Thoughts from you radio nuts out there?

[PowellWye]

I suffer the same thing on the Dayton District so I doubt changing to a directional antenna will help you very much to the west. The RS ground plane is a good antenna out of the package and can be made a bit better trimming it for 161 MHz. I trimmed both the vertical element and the radials as well as bending them down at 45 degrees. Also ditched angled the elements for UHF side. If you do decided to change antennas, I have found in the attic antennas with direct matches seem to work best, so a ground plane, quad or half square. Anything that requires a coil match, gamma or other seems to be impacted by nearby objects in the attic and suffer substantially from what you find outside in the free and clear.

[cbehr91]

Bumping this thread because I found a page about a "make-your-own" railband Yagi using PVC tubing and threaded rods. Seems easy enough. http://www.alabamarailfan.com/scanner.php

And I don't know if it's a change in atmospheric conditions or what but it seems like I'm not picking up as much as usual...

[PowellWye]

Reception has been up and down a bit this week but has been on the hot side several mornings. One day heard a detector north of Hamilton, OH from Groveport.

Yagis are not hard to build but can be a bit tough to tune without the proper equipment. Also I have found they don't work all that well in an attic environment. A quad performs better in an attic and is forgiving.