Scanner Antenna question - dual coupler

[IzzyEng4 427]

Since I recently purchased a new truck and I'm gonna install a new scanner in it. Has any used the coupler that makes your scanner connect to your car antenna. Here's the link to one I'm looking at:

http://www.universal-radio.com/catalog/scanants/4534.html

I'm looking for pro and cons, how well it works and if its worth the $$$ to buy one. I really want to keep my truck "low key" with the installation.

[TL2L31 8]

Since I recently purchased a new truck and I'm gonna install a new scanner in it. Has any used the coupler that makes your scanner connect to your car antenna. Here's the link to one I'm looking at:

http://www.universal-radio.com/catalog/scanants/4534.html

I'm looking for pro and cons, how well it works and if its worth the $$$ to buy one. I really want to keep my truck "low key" with the installation.

Izzy, in the past I have used something like that. It was basically a dual female , single male metal RCA type Y fitting. I used to get them at Radio Shack. They worked fine for me. The only problem you might have is depending on what type and size of fitting is on your car stereo's antenna wire and what adapters you might need for your scanner.

[SteveOFD 176]

Izzy, I see you are over at RadioReference.com also. I did a search of "car antenna" and came back with some interesting hits. Some said good, most said mediocre to good. Some said it degraded the AM/FM, and low band seemed to be poor. There was one posting specifically about the Valor PDC64. This one was not much of a review, but it said NG. Best of luck. Steve

[RWC130 594]

I have a Radio Shack on the Glass Antenna for my Scanner

and it has works fine for me.

I didn't wanna drill any holes or take apart my dash AM/FM radio.

Whoops, I mean I have a Radio Shack on the Glass Antenna for

my Scanner that I DON'T have in my car. Just had to CYA incase

Chris192 or INIT915 are reading this. lol

[Remember585 815]

To me, both the car antenna coupler and glass-mount antennas were crap in one sense of another. When I had the coupler to the car antenna, my UHF coverage was crummy. The glass mount was horrible for low band.

I eventually dumped the scanner and went with a mobile radio anyway. Much, much better.

[IzzyEng4 427]

Thanks all. I'm trying to get a few suggestions. My initial plan was to use a Comet two pint antennna mount on the rear hatch of my Mountaineer. I have an Austin antenna which I had it cowl mounted on my old truck and the antenna performed very well, despite some electical interference. I wanted to try and go for a "undercover" sleek look.

All suggestions and ideas are welcome.

Steve, I sent a PM to you.

[Guest Photounit]

I am in the process of looking for a new vehicle and will face the same dilemma soon..... These couplers while attractive, are full of comprimises....... If you use it you can kiss you AM reception good by...... It will undoubtedly also weaken your FM reception and the Scanner performance will not be as good as having a dedicated antenna..... Each radio needs to see a certain impedance at the antenna input in order to transfer the signal efficiently into the scanners front end as well as your AM/FM radio. By using something like this, there is no way to make this happen and they each are effectively fighting for the energy the antenna is capturing.

If you don't care about your AM on your car radio you could try this..... Buy a TV antenna distribution amplifier for the home that is designed to work on the TV and FM bands. I used a Radio Shack one..... I opened it up and found that the unit actually used an internal 120V ac to 12V dc power supply to run the unit. I lifted the leg of the power supplies output and added a wire (plus ground) for 12v from my car to power the unit. I then connected my car antenna to the amps input and connected three outputs to my FM/AM radio, scanner, and back when I did this 25 years ago, a 46.36 mhz Plectron..... and put a 75 ohm terminator on the fourth unused output.... Honestly, it worked pretty good.... The only drawback was that I lost my AM reception totally on my car radio..... If you want to try this you could do it for probably $50.00 or less.... There are some good ones on E-Bay all the time.... Like this....

This would be a good one -

http://cgi.ebay.com/Ultimate-TV-Low-Noise-...1QQcmdZViewItem

Buy this and then feed your antenna into it and the buy a splitter with however many ports you need and connect that to the amps output and then your radios and your in business.... Using a distribution amp or amp and splitter will buy you two things.... It will amplify the signal (And unfortunately the noise too) but will also allow for port isolation so each output presents a 75 ohm impedance which is what the radios all want to see.... This amp would also be great for putting up an outside antenna...... It has a gain adjustment, low noise (Although its 1db noise figure is hard to believe) and its 3rd order intercept point isn't too bad for a wide-band amp..... If you go this route just remember that too much gain on the input of a radio can be a bad thing.....

Here's something similar to what I used back in the day....

http://cgi.ebay.com/TV-Signal-Cable-Amp-Di...7QQcmdZViewItem

If you really want to do it right, then buy one of these.......

http://www.stridsberg.com/prod01.htm

If you are really interested in doing this let me know and I'll try to help you out.......Good luck..... Bill Johnson