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PostPosted: Thu Mar 01, 2012 5:40 pm 
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What's the best way to follow Pierce and Snohomish counties from Renton? I only get Pierce County when we drive down south and sometimes, usually in the summer, I get Snohomish County with crappy reception.

I live in a townhome so I don't think my manager would allow external atennas.


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PostPosted: Thu Mar 01, 2012 9:06 pm 
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I live in Renton and get Pierce/Tacoma and Snohomish West trunk systems fine on the RS 800 duck antenna. It is a matter of altitude. I live in the Renton Highlands.


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PostPosted: Thu Mar 01, 2012 9:20 pm 
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I live in Kennydale now and when I lived in Tukwila, I got Pierce county on several occassions.


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PostPosted: Thu Mar 01, 2012 9:32 pm 
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I've listened to Snoho in the basement of a Seattle building using this.


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PostPosted: Thu Mar 01, 2012 10:10 pm 
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Well that's not as much fun as using a scanner.

Well with my BC340CRS, I got Kitsap and Thurston counties perfectly.
On a sunny afternoon, Thurston County Sheriff's Department would have perfect audio.

So I guess I'll take my BCD396XT upstaairs one day and wait for it to lock on to the control channel.


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PostPosted: Fri Mar 02, 2012 3:59 pm 
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If you are running the stock antenna from Uniden - take a good trip to R@tShack for their 800 antenna. I use the SMA adapter to BNC that came with my 396T.


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PostPosted: Fri Mar 02, 2012 4:27 pm 
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There are any number of "stealth" antenna solutions available, if yu look around. The "ventenna" is (was?) offered for many years as a solution that mounted on top of a roof plumbing vent.

When I was ina townhouse many moons ago, I placed a dual band ham antenna in the attic. It worked pretty well considering the hole we were in, but transmitting on certain VHF freqs would set off the AC powered smoke detectors for several units each direction. A scanner of course would not cause that.

If you can get into your attic you may try placing a larger base style RX antenna in there...


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PostPosted: Fri Mar 02, 2012 4:34 pm 
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dste wrote:
If you are running the stock antenna from Uniden - take a good trip to R@tShack for their 800 antenna. I use the SMA adapter to BNC that came with my 396T.
+1 on this antenna.


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PostPosted: Fri Mar 02, 2012 9:03 pm 
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N7QOR wrote:
There are any number of "stealth" antenna solutions available, if yu look around. The "ventenna" is (was?) offered for many years as a solution that mounted on top of a roof plumbing vent.

When I was ina townhouse many moons ago, I placed a dual band ham antenna in the attic. It worked pretty well considering the hole we were in, but transmitting on certain VHF freqs would set off the AC powered smoke detectors for several units each direction. A scanner of course would not cause that.

If you can get into your attic you may try placing a larger base style RX antenna in there...


I gotta bite. I don't have an attaic in my house.
Also, is that antenna like the rubber duck antenna that comes with the BCD396XT? I'm not sure where my SNA thing is.


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PostPosted: Sat Mar 03, 2012 12:50 am 
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scanoholic wrote:
Also, is that antenna like the rubber duck antenna that comes with the BCD396XT? I'm not sure where my SNA thing is.
Same concept, but the one that comes with the 396 is an "all band" antenna. The RS 800 antenna is specifically tuned to the 800 MHz band.
BNC and SMA are just different types of connectors.


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PostPosted: Sat Mar 03, 2012 8:02 am 
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Are these antennas on the real radios?


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PostPosted: Sat Mar 03, 2012 4:18 pm 
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The Radio Shack 800 duck is after market. Probably one of the few RS products that actually works.

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PostPosted: Sat Mar 03, 2012 6:14 pm 
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Would it still let me receive other bands, or would I be stuck with the 800MHz band?


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PostPosted: Sat Mar 03, 2012 6:53 pm 
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Depends. if you're urban, it isn't bad for passing strong VHF signals but in the fringes I would say only the strongest out of band repeaters. I'm used to carrying more than one antenna. I really haven't found a broad banded antenna for all bands.

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PostPosted: Sat Mar 31, 2012 11:44 am 
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icom1020 wrote:
The Radio Shack 800 duck is after market. Probably one of the few RS products that actually works.

I have three of them they rock.


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