Undercover antenna opinions

[txshooter]

My vehicle has a covert Sti-co AM/FM antenna for a dual spectra setup. I have to have a PM300 installed for use with a VHF LTR system. I was thinking about getting a VHF window mount (cell phone look a like) antenna. Any opinions on performance of these antennas or any other options.

Does anyone have experience with this Phantom Elite antenna??
http://www.tessco.com/products/displayP ... ventPage=1


Thanks

[tvsjr]

VHF window mounts suck... all window mounts suck.

The "blob" Phantom Elite isn't bad, but make sure you don't run too much power (they say 60, I'd try to keep it south of 40) and make sure you're covered by the rated bandsplit. They are *not* broad antennas.

[motorola_otaku]

Does anyone have experience with this Phantom Elite antenna??
http://www.tessco.com/products/displayP ... ventPage=1

I played with one as a receiver antenna connected to a VHF Spectra. Receive range was horrible on "powerhouse" repeaters, even when mounted on the roof of a Crown Vic. I would still rate it as superior to a glass-mount, but not by much.

[firefighter13669]

I havent had any luck with glass mount or any others I have used maxrad and antennex and another name cant remember the name they seem to recieve great but when it come to transmitting no thank you Ill stick to my 1/4 wave

[FireCpt809]

The only on glass antenna I have had luck with is the Sti-co cell look alike, they arent cheap

[AEC]

Glass mounts are horrible...sub-par reception, poor transfer of RF and highly lossy to boot.

Sti-Co makes a coupler and diplexer(aluminum box) that connects to the diplexer, tthe radio and to the coupler, and finally, to the radios and your broadcast antenna.

I don't care for them, but they work better than a glass mount cellphone style antenna.

Radiall/Larsen has a tri-band NMO antenna that works, but stinks on all three bands (150/450/7/800).

We constantly get complaints of poor reception and range with these antennas.
Although they look good, their performance is nothing compared to antennas designed for the spcific bands.

And Pinal county doesn't even use 7/800 Mhz for LEO operations at all, and very little UHF also, so I wonder why anybody would choose such a waste of an antenna.....so much for taxpayer funded responsibility....

BTW: I don't care much for Sti-Co either, but at least they do work.

[cablemonkey]

Sti-Co makes a coupler and diplexer(aluminum box) that connects to the diplexer, tthe radio and to the coupler, and finally, to the radios and your broadcast antenna.

I've got a few of these in service and they work quite well on a single frequency. The filter response is so sharp, you have to choose between splitting the difference so you can work the repeater, or peaking on channel, and having the user only run simple.

Sti-co makes some interfaces now that will apparently let you TX into the in-glass FM antennas. I've been too chicken to try them out though. Afraid I'm going to burn those little black lines in the glass.

Also tried a "license plate antenna" but it was junk.

Tried putting a 1/4w vert in one of those plastic 'window' flags, but had trouble acheiving a workable ground plane.

So far, the sti-co couplers have been the best solution I've found.

[Jim1348]

Terry, do you work fugitives, dope, or something else? Anyway, I can sympathize with your concern. We just switched from analog conventional VHF high band to digital trunked 800 mHZ. My main radio is a Motorola MTS5000. They haven't even installed an XTVA in my car yet! (And it has been over 3 months since we switched.) Anyway, I used to worry about being stealthy, but I really don't even worry about it that much anymore. I have a dual band antenna for the EVDO aircard and I still have a quarter wave for the "old" VHF high band radio. For whatever it is worth, would a VHF quarter wave on a magnetic mount be an option for you? That way you could turn the radio off and hide the antenna in the trunk when you needed to be "stealthy". It is sort of risky, though, because you might forget to put the antenna back where it belongs, but I do know of some agencies and units that did do that in the past. I also know a guy at an adjacent county that used a black quarter wave when they were still on VHF and given the vehicle he had at the time, it blended in very well. It was kind of like the old theory "hide in plain sight." Of course, in my case if they are close enough to me to be scrutinizing my vehicle and they see a Panasonic Toughbook CF-29 laptop computer and a prisoner partition, they pretty much have figured it out anyway. Realistically, if you are worried about cover being blown by an antenna, you may have to use a vehicle that is completely free of ANY police equipment. I do know of another nearby agency that works vice quite a bit and they have a guy in a seized vehicle with ONLY a Motorola portable transceiver to talk to nearby units. I mean lets face it, if you are working a detail where someone is getting in your vehicle you have to be very careful that there isn't anything in there to tip them off. Even connectors for hand held control heads can be a giveaway. Good luck in your quest. I can neither confirm nor deny that a nearby agency had a vehicle set up like a local taxi cab complete with a VHF high band radio. So complete that they could switch to a local taxi cab channel so that you could hear the taxi cab communications. But then you switched from that channel and you were back on the "normal" channels. Again, another example of "hide in plain sight"!

[Wowbagger]

-=+=- These shoes were black and brown -=+=-
-=+=- They took the cross town bus -=+=-
-=+=- Don’t throw trash on the street -=+=-

Let me guess what you have for test equipment....

Although technically it's:

They took the cross town bus
Don't throw trash on the street
The shoes were black and brown.

[cablemonkey]

Let me guess what you have for test equipment....

Although technically it's:

They took the cross town bus
Don't throw trash on the street
The shoes were black and brown.[/quote]

That's what I thought too, but the manual says what I wrote. I have a GD R2670 but the guy across the aisle has the 2975, so I get to hear it all the time.

[firefighter13669]

Well they keep it simple around here everyone is vhf anolog.They use the antennex cell look alike antennas.An the suvs they are mounted close to the roof racks on the back and you cant really notice them hard to believe the antennas are not get for dist but for local surv they work great.

[Wowbagger]

That's what I thought too, but the manual says what I wrote.

That's in the manual? Hmph, have to go talk to Tech Pubs and get that updated....

[n3lee]

There is a company that makes "license plate antennas" which will suit your needs, they're relatively broad-banded and are available in dual band configurations. They go in pretty easy and since they use the actual metallic plate for an antenna it works pretty well -- the only thing you have to be careful of is the routing of the eyelets which attach to the license plate so that it makes good contact if they were to swap the plates out (ie: take the G21 plates off to put on some less-than-obvious surveillance plates)...

I've installed a dozen and the agencies say it works better than the sti-co glass mount antennas and they can go through the car wash too! They make a bumper version for cars which don't have the license plate on the bumper...

I've used both, and put them on everything from modern GM /Ford 'everyday' vehicles to things like Mazda 3's/6's, and various seized vehicles. Yet to see a unit returned for failure!

http://www.licenseplateantenna.com/

73's
de N3LEE