Far South Coast Scan shack

Farsouthscanner
Posts: 431
Joined: Thu Sep 04, 2008 10:47 pm
Location: Far South Coast NSW

Far South Coast Scan shack

Post by Farsouthscanner » Sat Mar 28, 2009 2:54 pm

Hi all
Bellow are some images of my newly completed setup.
First up the Icom Antenna. Note the bent element at the top. Bloody birds
Image

At the other end there is a Diamond Pre Amp at the end of about 14m of LDF4-50a cable
Image

From the Pre Amp it goes into a Multicoupler
Image

This is a pick of the server cabinet.
From top to bottom:
Cat 6 patch pannel phone stuff on right data on left
16 port Gigabit switch
Monitor with KVM and Modem
Scanners for streams- left is Uniden 245, then Uniden 73xlt, then Uniden 61xlt
Proxy server
Left main stream server, right audio stream and my main server
bottom 1.5KVA UPS
At the back of the cabinet below the multicoupler are a couple of rack mount power boards
Image

Close up of scanners
Image

Scanner outlets in rooms from multicoupler
Image

All coax is LMR-400 apart from the main line fromt the antenna

Mark

soupbones
Posts: 455
Joined: Wed Aug 13, 2008 10:23 pm

Re: Far South Coast Scan shack

Post by soupbones » Sat Mar 28, 2009 6:51 pm

Nice little set up. Well done for the streams. Least we know there is an excellent setup for the streams. What about the ones you listen to personally? I am interested to see those as well.

Well done again. :)

Farsouthscanner
Posts: 431
Joined: Thu Sep 04, 2008 10:47 pm
Location: Far South Coast NSW

Re: Far South Coast Scan shack

Post by Farsouthscanner » Sat Mar 28, 2009 7:28 pm

Hi Soupbones
I havn't got an impressive setup for my main scanners, although once I get a couple more cables made up they will all be connected through the mulitcoupler in the server cabinet.
With the wall plates, there is a 2 outlet one in the lounge room, a 2 outlet one in my bedroom (pictured) and a 1 outlet one in the entertainment room.
I have a Uniden 996 sitting beside the TV in the lounge room and a uniden 396 that is mainly next to that but could be anywhere I want an extra scanner.
My bedroom has a Realistic 2026, my first scanner and a Radioshack 2096.
There isn't really much too take a picture of, its a good setup but not like some peoples with a dozen scanners on the desk. I save that sort of thing for the server cabinet and streams :)
Mark

Farsouthscanner
Posts: 431
Joined: Thu Sep 04, 2008 10:47 pm
Location: Far South Coast NSW

Re: Far South Coast Scan shack

Post by Farsouthscanner » Sat Apr 11, 2009 2:38 pm

Hi all
I have had a bit of time to experiment with my new setup and these are some thoughts and discoveries so far:
Firstly the bad bits. I can't seem to get any Victorian stuff, I am a bit dissapointed with this as I thought the antenna placement would have been better than my old one. I can get RFS and Police fairly clear from Timbillica near the border so I would have thought I would get something.
Also I seem to get a fair bit of interfernce from the Merimbula GRN tower and possibly the council sewerage pumping station things in town. I think its these that send a short burst of data every few seconds around the 461MHz area. Turning the preamp down around half fixes most of this though. I also get worse interference from my wireless weather station, it transmits on 433MHz. I used to get some interference before but its worse now.
The Uniden 996 handles this interference better than the Radioshack 2096. I havn't tried my 396 or Realistic 2026 yet. The stream scanners seem to be able to handle it pretty good as well.
Now the good parts:
I have got very good recpetion in all rooms with outlets now, no more crappy signal in the bedroom.
I can get Police from Brown moutain as clear as from Bimmill with the pre amp turned up. I can also get other channels from further away better so it doesn't matter what channel I have the scanners on the signal is stil very good. For example I used to find the RFS were excellent on Ch43 from Bimmill and good but a bit scratchy from Wolumla CH 36, now both channels are as good as each other.
The other supprise, depending on the weather I can get Shoallaven RFS, this is from a repeater at Jervis Bay 250Ks or so away :) When its good it comes in nearly as clear as the local channels and when its bad I can hardly understand it but its not a bad effort and will be handy next summer.
Is this the sort of setup you want in the city? Probably not, there would be too much interfernece.
Overall I am haopy with it.
Mark

Wonky
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Joined: Thu Aug 14, 2008 6:08 pm

Re: Far South Coast Scan shack

Post by Wonky » Tue Apr 14, 2009 9:49 am

Great setup Mark! I think the LMR 400 is the key to the improved performance.

Farsouthscanner
Posts: 431
Joined: Thu Sep 04, 2008 10:47 pm
Location: Far South Coast NSW

Re: Far South Coast Scan shack

Post by Farsouthscanner » Wed Apr 15, 2009 11:07 am

Thanks Wonky
You could be right about the coax. The LMR runs are not longer than about 8-10m with about 2-3 meters used for patch cables so they would have very tiny loss rates.
I don't think I have mentioned this before but the wall plates are N Type sockets and the cables use N type plugs on each end with a BNC adapter at the multicoupler and scanners. Also there is a PL259 adapter for the pre amp from the LDF cable.
Mark

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alphamike
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Joined: Fri Aug 15, 2008 7:51 pm

Re: Far South Coast Scan shack

Post by alphamike » Tue May 19, 2009 9:03 pm

Nice setup!
Where did you get your wall plates from?
I'm setting up some antennas on the house soon and will be running RG-213. As well as multi-couplers and possible a pre-amp if i need one.

So im starting to look around for wall plates plus all the connections and everything required. Eventually it will be terminated with BNC plugs for my radios.

Cheers,
Alex

citabria
Site Admin
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Re: Far South Coast Scan shack

Post by citabria » Thu May 21, 2009 11:24 am

Thats a very nice setup!

Question for you though - I once tried to use LDF4-50 on a D130j but the plug on the end was too large a diameter to fit inside the mounting tube of the discone.. How did you manage to get it to fit?

Cheers,
Matt

Farsouthscanner
Posts: 431
Joined: Thu Sep 04, 2008 10:47 pm
Location: Far South Coast NSW

Re: Far South Coast Scan shack

Post by Farsouthscanner » Sat May 23, 2009 9:56 am

alexMc wrote:Nice setup!
Where did you get your wall plates from?
I'm setting up some antennas on the house soon and will be running RG-213. As well as multi-couplers and possible a pre-amp if i need one.

So im starting to look around for wall plates plus all the connections and everything required. Eventually it will be terminated with BNC plugs for my radios.

Cheers,
Alex
Hi Alex
The antenna installer supplied the wall plates. They were just blank generic ones and he drilled the holes in them for the panel mount N sockets. With RG213 you shouldn't have a problem but with the LMR 400 cable I used I couldn't easily get BNC connectors so I had to use N Type instead, not that it matters but it means I had to also get adapters. These are the parts I got. I got the plugs and adapters from RFShop, my antenna installer got the cable for me.
N Type plug- N3100-L400
N Type socket panel maount- N8105-L400
BNC adapter- AD-N8B3

Good luck with your setup, it takes a lot of time and patiance, and a crap load of money.
If you are near the city or a repeater tower I would consider not getting a pre amp. I have found with mine that its good for getting a weak channel clearer if its locked on, but if your scanning the scanner can get overloaded with interferance from the local GRN site if I have the pre amp up above about half.

I am also using an active 8 port Stridsberg (?) multicoupler from ScannerMaster in the US.

The preamp is a Diamond .

Mark

Farsouthscanner
Posts: 431
Joined: Thu Sep 04, 2008 10:47 pm
Location: Far South Coast NSW

Re: Far South Coast Scan shack

Post by Farsouthscanner » Sat May 23, 2009 10:04 am

citabria wrote:Thats a very nice setup!

Question for you though - I once tried to use LDF4-50 on a D130j but the plug on the end was too large a diameter to fit inside the mounting tube of the discone.. How did you manage to get it to fit?

Cheers,
Matt
Hi Matt.
Thanks for the compliment. I havn't got the final bill yet but its been worth it.
It fitted well in the Icoms tube. The Icom actually comes with a bit of cable with N Type plugs fitted. My antenna installer did all this for me and he didn't mention it not fitting, the only thing he said it was a bit tricky with the cable being so rigid and not very bendy. He did a great job though and the cable fits in well with the TV antenna coax.
Also he had to take one of the elements off to screw the tube to the antenna base but that was a minor thing.
Mark

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