rkdF250
Pre-takeoff checklist
I recently purchased a sporty's sp-400 radio and would like to hook it up at home for monitoring. Does anyone have any ideas regarding the type of antenna I can use?
Antenna for Home Setup
- Thread starter rkdF250
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gismo
Touchdown! Greaser!
Directional or omni?
Doggtyred
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Whatever is in Sportys...
Next best option is hitting up the local HAM radio shop or HAM radio club and ask for pointers on where to look..
As long as you aren't transmitting, and only monitoring, you should get adequate reception with a HAM antenna of the VHF/2 meter 1/2 wave variety. It would be inefficient for transmitting compared to a properly tuned element, but doable. I dont have the charts in front of me, but it might need to be an inch or so longer to be optimized for air band.
Steve
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gismo
Touchdown! Greaser!
I use a discone antenna which works over a much wider bandwidth than you need but it would still work pretty well for omnidirectional reception. They can be had for as little as $60. A Google search for "discone antenna" should turn up a few choices. I think that even Radio Shack sells them.
brcase
En-Route
Make you own from a piece of RG-58 Coax.
attach it to a rafter in the roof or something simliar.
http://www.soaridaho.com/Antenna/
Brian
CFIIG/ASE
attach it to a rafter in the roof or something simliar.
http://www.soaridaho.com/Antenna/
Brian
CFIIG/ASE
gismo
Touchdown! Greaser!
The problem with that is the roof and walls will attenuate the signal plus you might want to get the antenna higher for better reception. But if the signal is strong, an indoor homemade antenna could work well. I fail to see any point in "folding the shield" over the insulated cable though. If you just cut the shield off exposing a quarter wavelength of inner conductor and insure that an equally long shielded portion mirrors the exposed radiator, you've got a centerfed dipole.
ScottM
Taxi to Parking
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What Lance said. Best idea and best price for what you want.
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I've had one of these up inside my steel hangar for about a year now. It works well enough that I can talk to anyone within about a 5 mile radius and hear planes at neighboring airparks.
Paul
N1431A
2AZ1
HPNPilot1200
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It depends how fancy you want to get or how important reception is to you. You can make something as simple (and inexpensive) as a twin lead antenna. A step up would be a discone antenna, and above that would be an exterior mounted J-Pole antenna (probably overkill but great for scanning). Feel free to visit us at LiveATC.net for additional antenna insight and advice. There are quite a few different types of antenna systems discussed in the "feed setup pictures" forum.