What is the best antenna to build or buy for home VHF aviation band radio reception?

Question

I just bought a decent scanner to try to hear aviation traffic in my area. I am 11 miles from Honolulu airport and 4 miles from Kaneohe Bay MCB airfield. Using the antenna that came with, I get almost nothing from HNL (just a little airline internal traffic in the 450MHz range). There are some hills between me and HNL. The "came with" is a telescoping antenna. The system calls for 50 Ohms. I read about 1/2 wave dipole, 1/4 wave ground plane, J bars, Yagi etc. I want to pick up the best sound I can from HNL, which is directional, while still getting non-directional aircraft, though most of them will also be in a similar direction, and still keep a little broad band. In short, I want it all. What are my best choices and compromizes. I am reasonably handy and can build my own or buy, and could even put in a couple phased antennas together if that would work. Any help appreciated, or direction to the best web references. Thank you for your time

Answer 1

Since you seem to want the "internal" stuff in addition to the normal AM stuff down in the 125MHz region, you're talking something fairly wide band.

Those hills may hurt you at the frequencies you hope to receive. VHF tends to be a line of sight proposition.

For general coverage of VHF in an "omni" fashion, you will either need an assortment of directional and tuned antennas with a switch, or you might want to consider a "discone" style antenna. The latter doesn't have a ton of gain, but it's a reasonable compromise most of the time. Get it up just as high as local rules and neighbors will tolerate. If the coax length starts getting upwards of 50 feet, you may want to consider some better quality coax (9913 or better instead of any of the lesser RG series coax) to avoid line loss. The stuff is stiff as a board, but you'll be able to hang onto whatever signal it is you can get off your antenna.

4 miles and 11 miles aren't that tough at VHF frequencies if you've got reasonable terrain. Wish I knew just how ugly those "hills" really are.

At least you'll be assured to pick up all of the aircraft side of these comms well with a discone.

Remember -- elevate that antenna!

Coax Sources (of many possible)
http://www.hamradio.com/
http://www.radiobooks.com/products/rf910.htm
http://radioworks.com/ccoax.html

Discone Sources (of many possible)
http://www.grove-ent.com/ANT9.html
http://www.hamradio.com/
http://www.mfjenterprises.com/products.php?prodid=MFJ-1866

As for the above, I've always had very good luck with Grove and Ham Radio Outlet. Can't speak for the others.

Answer 2

The best thing to do is to open up an old portable radio and you should find some tuning capacitors inside, switch the radio on and turn the tuning caps until you cant hear any normal radio stations. This should then be at a high enough frequency to receive aviation airband.

Answer 3

I don't know what the first amp. gain and noise figure is .They have some great pre amps that u could use with a 10dB gain Yagi . U can find pre amp. with 20 dB gain and noise figures of .5 dB . Your receiver at those freq possible has a nois figure of 4 to 6dB. The amplification of the signal before the loss of the cable makes a lot of difference.