Hank, if you're planning to use the discone antenna for any scanning especially in the public safety frequency ranges (770 Mhz to 870 Mhz) then I'd recommend upgrading your coax to at least LMR400 even if it's a short run. It's a worthy upgrade for the gain difference you'll get in the higher frequencies. Also, since discone antennas aren't designed for gain you can help this by raising its height. A cheap way is to buy a 10ft piece of EMT conduit at any major hardware store. You can prime and paint it any color if you wish to make it stealthy. The extra 10ft may not seem like much but can make a substantial difference in Tx and Rx performance.

Your wife must be someone awesome - she even helps you put up antennas! Man O' Man! You must treat her right! Thanks for all your videos brother! Well done!

Looks great ! Thanks for sharing . I ran a sweep of my discone with a sitemaster years ago for laughs and outside of a few minor bumps you would have thought it was a dummy load. They are a great antenna . We had a bunch of STI-CO discones as part of a project I was on and there was no measureable perfomance increase between those ($$$$$) and the amateur variants. I look forward to watching it work with your spectrum analyzer.

Nice video! I just picked up a Tram 1410 Discone to use with my SDR for various experiments (op25, dump1090) and am impressed with it's performance. Funny you also have the ID-880H, I have one mounted in my Jeep as a mobile unit on a COmet CA24SR antenna.

KZfaq recommended this video 7 years later. How did the discone hold up? A 7 year later follow up video would be great. Also, I like the antenna mast. Did you ever add an extension?

The Discone under ideal conditions should give you a spherical beam pattern. As an only antenna it's fine but it's a compromise. You'll need the Discone for a scanner (SHTF) but the 2 meter antenna will give you better take off angle and as you know can reach out further. I use my Discone side by side on two different rigs and there is a world of difference. I suggest using your Discone in your WVA property.

WOW very cool. I want one

excellent. I grabbed myself the same antenna. I do have one question, how did u ground it?

Ordered one the other day. Can't wait to get it. Also fix the title of the video (Coment). Thanks for the great videos Hank !

I've always been intrigued by those discones but never had one. Is that upper vertical section with the loading coil adjustable with Allen screws top and bottom of the coil form to fine-tune the SWR?

Very nice antenna my friend. Thanks for sharing and God bless. Cheers

nice,thanks

It sure would help if the SWR was high and you showed what can be done to adjust it.

+Commsprepper I have the Radio Shack Discone, and most of the rods broke off. What brand is yours? Is it holding up okay?

Nice video...thanks!

Thank you for this information Hank. Does using 50' or 100' of coax greatly affect SWR?

Commsprepper do you still have this antenna in the air and how has it held up over the time? Bruce KC0AQU

Nice antenna!

Looks like a winner! Could you use one of those with a handheld radio? I have adapters for mine to hook up coax cable.

Past experience with discones have shown the SWR to be great, but performance to be lacking. A local ham, over the Niagara River from me, in Canada, can hit a Buffalo repeater on his HT easily with the stock dual-band rubber duck, but is too noisy to understand when he connects the same radio to the discone. Also, the SWR on 6 meters and 1.3 meters is under 2:1, but he can't hear us on 52.525 or 223.5 with the discone. I have no good explanation. He has a Ringo on those bands, and he's solid on either band when using the single band antennas. Based on this, plus reports from other amateurs around WNY and Ontario, the discone is marginal at best. de WB2VUO here near Buffalo

A question: If I am not interested in using the DS-150S on 6 meters, do I need to attach the whip on top? The whip appears to be active only on 6 meters, and since I plan to listen/transmit only on 2 meters and above, I wonder if I can leave it off.

good evening. In sequence 1:12, how seal against moisture the Discone antenna outdoor? With silicon spray? best wishs Harald CH

Good SWR If I didn't just put up a diamond I'd order it. I may order it anyway as a receive antenna and backup 2m 70cm

Where did get the gain figure from. Did ones have unity gain. dBi isn't real anyway it's gain compared to a theoretical isotropic radiator.

Can you do this to a handheld scanner?

What coax do you need? Where can I buy this antenna?

How does this antenna work for 220 MHz?

Shorten the stinger up about 1/8 + of an inch and should center the swr freq out.....

what model is it ? vy 73

Discones are a broadband reciever solution that rarely provides satisfactory performance on transmit.

that must suck with all the trees around

The diamond is better.

Its amazing , how many radio geeks lack common sense. The make and model of the antenna early on would have been helpful

Sorry, I'm a safety guy. The base of the ladder should be at least 1/4 the length of the ladder away from the wall , hence, a 12' ladder should have the bottom at least 4' from the house. Your an accident waiting to happen and I'm only 1 min into the video