162 - Crash Course 2021 Pt 3 - Hardware

Free SDR Training! Check out our new course, "The Ultimate Beginner's Guide to Software Defined Radios: Everything you need to know to get started with SDR in an afternoon."   You can enroll for free at https://courses.scannerschool.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Get started with Scanning in 2021 Our "2021 Scanner Radio Crash Course" Webinar will be January 26, 2021 at 8pm Eastern US time.  Register for the live webinar or catch the replay at www.scannerschool.com/2021 This webinar will get you started or up to speed on Scanning for 2021.  --------------------------------------------------------------- Do you want to get started with scanning or brush up on basics in the new year? In this episode, Phil goes through a rapid-fire rundown of Scanner Radio Hardware This is part 3 of this 2021 crash course. What you will take away from this week's podcast: Antennas need to be matched, or resonant on the frequency or frequencies you need to monitor. The lower the frequency, the larger the wavelength, which requires a longer antenna.   The higher the frequency, the shorter the wavelength, and thus the shorter the antenna. Some antennas can cover a wide bandwidth or even multiple bandwidths. A discone antenna works reasonably well across just about every frequency we might want to listen to, but there is no gain. Discone antennas are omnidirectional and vertically polarized. Yagi antennas are directional antennas with high gain over a small bandwidth, consisting of a boom, a reflector, and a driven element. After your antenna, you need good quality coax cable to deliver the frequencies your antenna is picking up into your radio. As your frequency increases, the amount of loss in coax cable also increases. The best way to combine multiple scanner to a single antenna is with an active multicoupler because it uses isolated ports. You can use filters if you have nearby interference that is preventing you from hearing what you want to listen to. All session notes with links to the items we talked about an be found on our website at www.scannerschool.com/session162 --------------------------------------------------------------- Would you like 1 on 1 help? If you need help with your scanner and are looking for some one on one tutoring, I'd love to help you out.  Visit www.scannerschool.com/consulting to book your one hour appointment today! Help support Scanner School You can help support Scanner School by visiting our support page at www.scannerschool.com/support