Welcome and Introductions - Say Hello Here :)

[CT2665]

Hello to every one.

Just joined this forum, and purchased a new uniden ubc 125xlt which arrived in the post today.(had been using a friends albrecht ae 355 m not sure if these are any good ?)
just getting to grips with it. any tips for a loft mounted antenna set up ?
getting some good hits from east mids airport as i am about 25 miles away. 10 miles north of Derby.

thanks in advance.

cheers

[m0lsx]

Welcome to the forum.
Albrecht are a re badged Uniden. So you should find the 125 a good follow on.
How much height do you have in your loft & will you be feeding the coax directly through the ceiling to the scanner?
If so you may want to try something like the Spectrum Nomad antenna, which will easily hang in your loft.

http://www.spectrumcomms.co.uk/Aerials.htm

£22 including postage gets you an antenna ready to use from the box. Another option might be a short-ish Discone type antenna which can easily free stand in the loft. With the discone add in coax & that will need connectors soldering on each end.

[CT2665]

Hi

Thank you for the reply.
i have about 1.50 m head room in the loft.
the plan was to to put the antenna in the loft and run coax down to my garage(man cave), about 15m cable should do it.
i was thinking of using some thing like a watson w30 as i fancy doing my ham licence.
but this might not be the best option as i dont know much about radios and scanners.
so would a discone be better than the watson ?
i am guessing a dedicated scanner antenna would be better for scanning and a 2m/70cm antenna for radio.
just trying to get the most cost effective set up to start with.

cheers

[m0lsx]

My wife is a 2E0 & knew nothing about radio until she decided she wanted to be able to use the radio 2. My daughter gained her M3 aged 9. The whole idea of the current licence system is to allow people who know nothing to learn as they progress.
A foundation course will take a single weekend to complete, including the test & will take someone from zero knowledge to a licensed operator.
The Watson W30 is perfectly OK antenna. Plenty of us use amateur radio white sticks. My main scanning antenna is a three band white stick, although it's getting a little old now & I no longer use 2 & 70, so I am thinking of replacing the tri bander next time I replace the coax.
The Coax will need to be RG-213 or better. As even at 15 meters, RG-58 will loose in excess of 50% of the signal.

[CT2665]

Thank you so much for your help.

whats better than rg-213 ? is rg8x better or worse than rg58

am i correct in thinking the tri band antenna is better than the duel band for scanning ?

think i am getting it, thank you


cheers

[m0lsx]

RG-8X is slightly worse than 213. The options that are better than 213 tend to be expensive. Ultraflex is very good, it's better than 213, but the size of mini 8. However it's more expensive than both & I find adding the connectors is slightly more difficult & certainly more expensive.
Westflex 103 is also better than 213 & around the same price. Plus the connectors are cheaper for westflex than Ultraflex. However Westflex is not as robust as either 213 or Ultraflex & often does not like to be bent along it's run or moved at the connector too much.
Personally I would go for decent quality 213 from a decent supplier. It's fine on a 15 meter run. Unless you are working very weak SSB signals. But for average scanning & normal amateur use, it's fine.

[CT2665]

Great info , many thanks.

213 it is then..with the antenna i am looking at i will need to fit a pl259 plug and a bnc plug, these ok to fit on rg213 ?

whats mini 8 ? is that the same as rg8x ?

i have checked and i would only need 10 m cable so that might help a little..

cheers

[Long body]

Hi everyone, just really to hello as I'm the new kid on the block having just joined the forum.
I've got a uniden 125 just like most of the population of the UK by the looks of it!
I've got it up and running and quite happy so far but it's a long long way from my big old black and silver fake leather box of a 70's solid state airband radio I had as a kid ha ha!!
Anyway I've got loads to learn and I'm slow but sure...slow to learn and sure to forget!!!
so be gentle ha ha but its great to be with you.

[thebigtyreman]

hi there,

quite new to the forum and just my d777 installed and about 30ft high using low loss coax
with the american branded BC15X and got back into the scanning hobby after all the kids
have grown up.

have to say its a lot quieter than it was in the 90's but air band is mainly my passion with
a bit of HF too.

regards

Paul

[durtlocker]

Hello friends ,i am from Lewes in East Sussex .My location is on the eastern bank of the river Ouse Valley so i am blocked from signals from the west ie City of Brighton etc ,i can however hear a good deal of stuff from the north ,east and southern directions.
Having read quite a few posts on here i cant or have not seen very many others from this part of the world ,if i have missed you pop up and say hi i dont bite !.
I have been a radio Ham since 1995 so i wriggled out of the necessity to take the Morse and got the full HF entitlement ,i dabble in dmr and mostly vhf and uhf but have found a new pastime with my nuelec dmr dongle.
I have a white stick on the roof which is a tri band co-linear for 145 mhz 430 mhz and 50 mhz which stands me in good stead for the sdr. i have also got an Hf vertical which doesn't get much usage but its out there if needed.

I look forward to chatting with you soon

Cheers
Shawn