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Keep an eye open for an old fence being torn down. I have a 20' single piece top rail that's heaver wall than the Home Depot stuff that my TV antenna is on.

Didn't think of that...will keep an eye out...

At one of the sites I work at is an apartment complex. The residents tend to throw out for some reason throw out the nice DIrectTV/Dish Network tripod mounts, so if I see someone walking to the dumpster with one, I usually talk them into giving them to me and end up giving them to other hams and scanner people because they are a decent antenna mount.

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So I have decided to go with the top rails, the offer the most height for the least money... and are actually perfect for antenna purposes with the tapered end for the antenna attachment. I actually was digging around, and found a pipe sunk in concrete that was used to hold a pipe up for something in the past, probably a TV antenna... So that will actually be my mount, and will fit the 1 3/8 pipe pretty tight, so its a win win on that and $20 for 21' isn't to bad of a deal...

I guess the next question, is what antenna to top it all off with. I was looking at the RS 20-176 to get the most I can, but still not be a totally obtrusive antenna... Anyone used the 20-176, or have something that might work better? I am looking to stay in the 150-160MHz and 450-470MHz range for right now, and I am not doing anything in the 800 range with my base at all, as it doesn't do trunking anyway......

My other concern is that I also live about 1000' for a county repeater that is about 150' AGL, so any antenna will have a direct line of sight. What I am trying to do is bring in some of the more distant stuff, but my concern is overloading the scanner with the stuff coming off repeater close by. There are 5 of the 15 or so freq's that I monitor are coming from 1000'' away, while the others are coming from about 20+ miles off... What is the risk of doing all this work on a nice mast and antenna, only to make matters worse with saturation on the 5 frequencies I get clearly already?

RS Antenna:
http://www.radioshack.com/product/index ... Id=2103641

I've got 3 of the 20-176 and have been happy with all three. I think there are a few others on here with the same antenna.

As far as overloading/saturating/splattering I've never been able to test that as I don't live near a repeater. I can however key up my desk/mobile for which the antenna is close to the 20-176 antennas for my 2055's and it saturates almost immeadiately @ I believe 45 watts.

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Interoperability is an attitude, not a technology.

So I figure I will throw out an update...

I ended up actually going with some reclaimed 1" steel conduit, cut down to 3 58" sections, to be semi portable. I actually found it laying around with 2 connectors. It comes out to be 14' 6", and mounted off my deck its actually about 18' off the ground. I ended up going with a 20-176 ground plane, which I must say is working awesome for the area that I am in in the 150 and 460 bands, and for $23 (RS dealer not a corporate store) you can't beat it. I am actually getting things I have never been able to get here, I am actually pulling in Grays Harbor pretty clear all the way here in the Silverdale area. I did have a small problem with overloading because I am located so close to a county repeater, but using the attenuator solved that. I ended up running 50' of RG-6/QS/Burial that I picked up for $15 on clearance at home depot, which was an awesome price, they even put the tips on it for me for free...

Final Cost ended up being about $47.35... Can't beat $3.26/ft...

I will throw some pics up in the next few days...