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Reviews For: Radio Shack Discone

Category: Antennas: VHF/UHF+ Omnidirectional: verticals, mobile, etc

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Review Summary For : Radio Shack Discone
Reviews: 39MSRP: 59.99
Description:
Item # 20-043
Our best! Omnidirectional, rugged stainless steel construction, wide 25-1300MHz receive coverage. Also for transmitting on 50, 144, 220, 440, 900 and 1296MHz Ham bands. Resonator and tunable whip for best 50MHz performance. About 44" high, overall. Fits mast up to 1" in diameter. Accepts PL-259 connector.
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.radioshack.com
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
00393.9
W8OB Rating: 2003-04-23
good for what it is Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I have had one of these antenna's up for about 4-5 years now. Assembly is a no-brainer and uses a excellant mast mount clamp system. Most of the hour install time was due to the touchy tuning of the loading coil for 50 mhz transmit, but once set its pretty stable. Operation on all the ham freq's its designed for is pretty good, it is not a super gain antenna but then again its not designed to be. I had no problem accessing distance repeaters when I used it on 2m and 440.
Mine has been installed at 40 feet and gone through some nasty wind storms and has been the perching ground for several larger birds and it still looks like it came from the box nice and shiny yet. I have had no problems with the aluminum rods breaking. The only thing keeping this from getting a 5 rating is I think its overpriced for what it is. Using the antenna for scanning it works excellant and I am able to receive public service transmissions from several counties and occasionally some from the other side of the state.
KC0ORP Rating: 2003-04-22
Buy it used. OK Scanner Reciever Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
This antenna should be bought used, if possible.
The radials will bend or break with the slightest shock, leaving you with a bad radiation pattern.

Good general recieve, but no gain, as noted, on xmit. Best performance was noted on 70 cm, suprisingly.

Even my RS magmounts work better on xmit.

Wally.
K6TKO Rating: 2003-02-15
Good Time Owned: more than 12 months.
This antenna has been on my roof for about 3 years and works well as it was designed to.No gain, full vhf/uhf coverage. It tx's fine on these ham bands. No gain=no gain. no broken promises.
After 3 years the hardware is in almost new condition here in sunny califonia.
AB0UK Rating: 2003-02-14
A Good Antenna Time Owned: more than 12 months.
My Radio Shack discone antenna has been up over 12 months and not a hint of trouble. It has done everything I wanted. It is used for 2 meters and 70 centimeters. VSWR is about 1.5:1 on both bands and easily handles 50 watts. Normally I run about 10 watts. It easily hits repeaters 20 miles away. Three rigs have been connected to it and it has never missed a beat. I wish other equipment that I have or had including antennas we as trouble free as this antenna.

73,

Jim, AB0UK
W4TME Rating: 2003-02-13
It is what it is.... Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Let’s remember that this is primarily a scanner (receiving) antenna. This was my first "real" antenna I bought in my pre-Technician days to listen to local traffic on my scanner. I found the construction of the antenna to be of average quality (hollow radials, crimped on connectors, etc.) and the documentation adequate. For use with a scanner, it did real well with the exception of the radials breaking off (large birds kept perching on my radials). The effect I saw from "radial drop" was a change in the antenna's impedance.

Once I earned my Technician ticket, I used this antenna as my first 2m transmitting antenna. I got a VHF/UHF tuner to help with the SWR issues. Well...it worked, but the efficiency was lousy. I now know that using a broadband antenna; you are going to have to live with a lot of compromises. I hurriedly replaced it with a Force12 Ruby270 for my 2M & 70 cm rig. I moved the discone antenna to my attic and use it exclusively with my scanner. This solved my bird induced "radial drop" problem. If you use this antenna for its intended purpose and don't have any weather or wildlife related issues, it will do a good job for you. I agree with the previous reviewer, that for approximately the same money, the Diamond discone is much better built and probably a better value in the long run.

N9FG Rating: 2003-02-13
It's falling apart.... Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
I put the discone 3 feet out on the side of a tower, about 30 feet in the air. I fed it with Belden 9913F. However, it's been up there for about 9 months now, and is starting to fall apart.

The antenna does a fair job on receiving VHF/UHF signals. (Don't expect too much from this antenna given it's broadband nature and lack of any gain.) Anyway, it is able to reliably copy VHF/UHF signals up to 50 miles away.

The main problem with the antenna began this winter. The radial tubes are crimped onto stainless steel screws which screw into the radial mount. The hazards of winter (icing, wind, etc.) have caused 3 of the radials to break-off at the crimp--leaving the screw still in it's mount. [I've inspected the radials and have found that they were not able to withstand the stress of icing/wind and subsequently started to fail at the weakest point of the crimp.]

I can't detect any degredation in performance with 3 less radials, but suspect it will drop
drastically as I begin to find more stuck in the ground below the tower....

I bought a new Diamond D-130 discone at a recent hamfest. The Diamond has solid radial rods that slide into the radial mount. They are not hollow like the Radio Shack Discone--have no crimp,are nice and heavy, and mount with two allen hex screws on each radial. Considering the D-130 was the same price as the Radio Shack, it is a much better buy.... Now I'll have to wait for spring to switch antennas.
VE7LGT Rating: 2003-02-03
negative gain Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I owned one once bought it at a garage sale for 10.00 it worked ok hooked directly to the scanner but finally sold it with my old scanner to a friend . He mounted it to a pole with a long run of coax to his shack his first thoughts when he plugged it into the scanner was that I had sold him a bad scanner, as he could not recieve any signals even the clubs repeater just just about half a mile away until he unplugged the discone and plugged a small wire to the back of the scanner and had no trouble recieving signals miles away. Then he read the specs and discovered that the discone had a negative gain rating . this along with the long run of Coax an extremely good Attenuator. Yes the swr is great on almost any UHF VHF frequency but the same can be said for a 50 ohm resistor.
W0TOD Rating: 2003-02-03
Great Antenna! Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I use mine with a Icom IC-PCR1000. Works great across the entire operating range of the receiver.
When hooked up to VHF/UHF tx, swr was better than advertised (1.1-1 across the bands). I'm very happy with the antenna and would recommend it to others and buy another for myself. Also the antenna was easy to obtain (RS right around the corner & thus easy to return if I didn't like it-no s/h to pay for). $60 well spent.
KB2QQM Rating: 2002-11-29
Easy Up-Do Everything Antenna Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I just bought this Antenna today, to work 2m/440 with my Yaesu FT-847. This antenna so far (1day) works great. I installed it with a 15 foot mast on the side of the house and fed it with coax. It easily went together, and I did the job by myself, although it probably would not hurt to have a friend help you, as once you get the antenna mounted on the antenna pole and you go to climb up the ladder, if it(the antenna/mast combo) tips over, it will be trashed. The parts are chrome plated. All hardware was in the box with instructions, and out of the box, together and then mounted on the house was about 1.5 hours.
You could spend more $$ on a Diamond Discone, but at $90.00.....why?
So far as measured on the MFJ Analyzer:
2M was between 1.2 and 1.5 swr
6M was about 2.0 at 50.125 but higher toward the
FM Repeater Freq's....but I did not adjust
it....cause my ButternutHF9V vertical works
6M thru my SGC tuner.
70cm -I did not have a way to check the Swr, so I
am using low pwr until I check it out.

Not bad for out of the box, I could have adjusted the 6m whip, which by the way had lowest swr on about 49mhz, so shorter would have been better, well maybe next week.

All in all its not a bad antenna, low profile coupled with a low price.