Flasherly wrote:
On Sat, 19 Apr 2014 18:51:04 -0400, Paul wrote:

Look up the band plan for your area, then see if the scanner is scanning
the right area. Amateurs can only obtain licenses for limited bands.

http://barrowhamradio.org/images/art...r_BandPlan.pdf

You can also wait for night-fall, and see if skip brings in more
stations for you.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_propagation

The antenna on a hand-held will likely be more effective at
the higher frequencies. Just a guess.

I read that too on the antenna, looked around and went ahead with an
extra, better one. Do whatever you want with it, legally w/out a
license, until not just listening or illegally pushing the TRX button.
General forum talk is 35-60 miles reception range with this unit -
depending, to include severely limited, on conditions.

Find what local frequencies I can, I guess, and start studying how to
correctly enter/store their parameters. Then try the scan part. Not
sure about that higher freq, second band. I know I've got something
either on power lines behind me or interference nearby -- got a
shortwave that's effectively useless because of it, although I don't
hear its "signature churn" on this HAM thing so far. The local
government weather station comes in nice, just kind of strange see how
limited repeaters or general frequencies listed available locally
(it'll hold 128 channels), then plugging them in and not hearing
anything. So far.

Doesn't the unit have a channel scan mode ?

Connecting an oddball antenna is OK, as long as you don't
key the mike. You want the antenna impedance to match the
impedance of the radio, before pumping power into the
antenna. For receive, a mismatch would be an efficiency issue,
but wouldn't damage anything.

For example, if I had your radio right now, I could hook it
up to the TV antenna I built (good for UHF and VHF combined).
It uses a balun, and has close to 75 ohms impedance looking
into the balun (actual impedance varies with frequency). Which
would be a rough match for a 75 ohm radio. Some antenna configurations
are 300 ohms, and air line or ladder line can be as high as
450 ohms differential. And you don't have to build an
antenna, to figure out the impedance. Software like 4NEC2
can be used to simulate antenna performance, and tell you
all sorts of things about it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numeric...magnetics_Code

http://www.qsl.net/4nec2/ (used to verify my antenna)

My antenna is five feet high, five feet wide, and more
than 18 inches deep. And has a gain of 15dBi. And the beamwidth
is kinda narrow, so you have to point it at the signal source
on the horizon. The actual antenna performance, did not
match the simulation (there is gain at the top of the UHF
band that should not be there).

This is what hams use. The tower (elevation), is more than
half the battle. Elevation helps a lot.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yagi_antenna

Paul