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Thought I'd run a comparison of a few of my NMO antennas. Thanks to the color coding of the signal strength with a SDR it's quite easy to compare antennas against each other.

Digital modulation is key here; analog would show too much variation unless it's a dead carrier. IWN (P25 control channel) and TRBOWest (MotoTRBO control channel) were the two handiest candidates. VHF is 167.6875 and UHF is 454.01875.

Antennas used:

Antenex ABSCANC "All band" scanner antenna
Laird A150/450C VHF/UHF
Maxrad MUF4505 UHF
Motorola HAE4003A UHF
PulseLarsen W-490B VHF
Tram 1150 VHF



VHF:


Click to enlarge

UHF:

Click to enlarge

Note I didn't have the gain turned up as much on the UHF tests. Doesn't really matter though since the point is to compare the antennas against each other; the gain was at the same setting for all antennas.

Not sure what was going on with the Maxrad in the UHF tests. I've had it perform better other times; seems like there's a case for revisitng this.

We have had huge maintenance issues with some older Maxrads.. Primary now is Laird due to the longevity we get out of them. We use the B4503 on everything now.

Good test!

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The Laird has always been a good mobile scanner antenna. I've been using mine for for ~8 years or so...