new to the arena

[twoborders]

Hi all, Matt here, new to the scanner arena.


The house I brought a while back came pre-installed with a rather large Antenna mast...

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Anyhow, in an attempt to get started, I went the cheap Chinese ebay way and brought the url /, seems to work ok, just need to sort out an antenna for it, then I'll upgrade the hardware receiver later on. (funds missing atm)

So I have a couple of questions;
1. What is this antenna? (sorry about the bad photo, bad light atm, let me know if you need a better photo)
2. How can I lower it easily and put something else on it?
3. What is a good quality <$200 antenna that will pickup a large range? atm I am playing with decoding paging messages, but do like to search around and find interesting things. And is there any Melbourne suppliers that you would recommend (PM if you prefer on this one)
4. cabling.... Will find out what is currently installed and revert back, but I have a lot of RG6 on a spool, can that be used for receiving only?

Thanks
Matt.

[terryhaynes]

Hi Matt and welcome to AussieScanners. That's a decent antenna set up you have there!!

Terry.

[twoborders]

Thx. A guy two streets up has a huge setup.

I had a look at the cable on the antenna, it's 50ohm RG8