Posted: 8/1/2014 6:58:19 AM EDT
|
So how many of my ARF-brethren are into that aspect of the hobby (Signal Intercept....Scanning, etc....) ?
My curiosity has been sparked regarding the subject and now I'm looking at moar ways to spend money that isn't there! (it doesn't help that some LID is jamming our county fire dispatch/ops) Lucky for me I found a discone I had long forgotten and plan to toss it into the attic above the laundry/garage/office area along with a MURS J-pole for furthering it's coverage. I may add some directional antenna up there as well... and these look like something I 'just need' 
|
|
Aluminium foil tape (can be found at home depot/lowes/walmart) on plexiglass is the way to go for log periodic antennas.
Remember to use 75Ohm "feedpoint" for your receive antennas, supposedly it's less lossy coax on receive. I have a bunch of antennas in my attic fed with RG6 quad shield. They all work REALLY well for pulling in the UHF and UHF-high signals. I once accidentally heard a baby monitor a couple subdivisions away, so I became curious and tracked it down using the antenna designs you linked, but homemade with this copper foil tape. |
|
Home brew hand held 2M tape measure yagi and I'm still considering adding a Dopper for signal intercept.
I also plan to add a single elevated discone with a Tx ability for both UHF and VHF. That way I can swap connections inside the Ham Shack to use a RTL-SDR also for scanning but normal use on 2 way radio. I do wonder if the discone connection would benefit from some filtering for the regular UHF and VHF use? |
| Tangotag mentioned SDRs. They make scanning or searching so easy. Even with my $20 rtl it is trivial. It has 4MHz of bandwidth, that allows me to see all of two meters. I usually zoom in on the repeater output area and look for signals in the waterfall. Plus I am recording IQ the whole time so if I miss something I can go back and listen latter. |