VHF scanner antenna coax length?

Question

I have the choice of either mounting my police scanner antenna ontop of a 60 foot tree or just outside my room at 20 feet. The coax would then be either at least 100feet at the tree or 30 feet to my roof. Which would be better for reception? Does the lenght alter the advantage of having it ontop of a tall tree? I get different answers all the time....whats up? The truth only please. RIck

Answer 1

The truth is this

Height matters.. putting it up 60 feet is way better for hearing than 20 feet off the ground.

Coax also matters however as coax has something called loss in it. basically a signal looses a little bit of itself over a long run and if the wrong coax is used, the gains made by the tall tree will be eaten up by the loss of signal over the 100 feet in the coax.

So if you can only afford cheap coax, the shorter the run the better, meaning 20 feet. but to do it right in your case takes 60 feet of height and a good coax such as a RG-6, RG-8, Beldin 9913 or something with low loss at higher frequencies (as most listen to 800 MHZ for police/fire where coax losses go up and actually eat up the benefits of putting the antenna higher with a cheap coax such as RG-58 which is normally used for CB radio)