good antenna?

[Court Hubbard]

i have a handheld scanner that i'm going to be putting in my vehicle and i'm looking for a good mobile magnet mount scanner antenna that i can put on my roof so i get better reception, you guys have any recommendations?

 

[Bill Hamilton]

Here is a good magnet mount antenna.
http://www.radioshack.com/product.asp?cata...uct%5Fid=20-032

It is a good with the BNC connector but it won't stay on with very strong headwinds. Driving 70mph with a 30mph headwind is almost to much for it.

 

[Alan Broerse]

Antenna

I use a 5/8 wave antenna on top of my ford explorer. It has a magnet mount and from the top of the antenna to the ground is under 10 ft.(includes car height) I have had it up to 90 mph with 20 plus mph head winds and was within 300 yards of an anticyclonic tornado this year which had 60 mph inflow...and 99.7 RFD after it passed. I had a tri-mount magnet holding my weather instrument package too...neither budged an inch. Be picky on your magnets..and if your scanning you might go with a quarter wave antenna to reduce legnth. :idea:

 

[John Erwin]

Antenna

I have one of those Radio Shack antennas, but have mixed opinions regarding thier use. Despite the fact that they claim these are "multi-band", the performance is not entirely flat accross the advertised frequency coverage. For instance, performance on anything from around 150 MHz to 450 MHz or so is okay, frequency reception outside of this is quite poor. I did have the chance to try the antenna for tranmitting; performance was not bad on both 2m and 70cm, but nowhere near as good as the fender-mounted dual band antenna I have. I also noticed problems with the magnetic base itself; the plastic on the bottom will wear quickly and start causing damage to your paint in short order. For scanner use I ended up using a second dual-band ham antenna plus a smaller 800 Mhz antenna (for trunked use).

Verdict? The RS antenna is okay for occaisional use, but don't depend on it for a permanent installation.