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Mechanica

Wide band mag mount

When the guys from Stewart aviation asked if I would be interested in trying out a vehicle scanner mag mount I must admit I had to try and keep cool. You see I had longed to try one of these on my car and was wondering just how good they really were. So his offer was greatly appreciated.

So you can imagine my delight to have not one but two different mag mounts delivered by the postman the next day. The first being a wide band type and the other a civil/military airband job. I decided to put the wide band one through its paces.

Installation:

Pure and simple, stick it on your roof and feed the cable through the boot/hatchback and through to the front of the car. I imagine there are more tidier ways of doing this but this worked for me, feeding the cable through the back, between the rear seat and along the foot wells at the rear, along the right hand side of the drivers seat and that was it all done in under a minute! Incidentally this mag mount was fitted with 5 metres of cable with a bnc connector at the end. I have heard of some mag mounts not having enough cable to reach the front of the vehicle!

I found that the bnc connector would not twist and lock properly on any of my scanners and feared that it may keep coming off, however in practice this did not happen when connected on top on a hand held or when connected to the back of a base/mobile scanner.

In use:

So how well does it work? The text that came with this product states that it receives between 100-1000MHz. But I think the manufacturers forgot to check below this frequency range because I found at 30 MHz that it increased the monitoring range to well over 200%!! There are some low powered devices in this area and with the mag mount connected I found that My R5 stayed locked onto them long after the supplied whip antenna lost them, for an extreme example my scanner stayed onto a signal for 0.8 miles in normal circumstances I would have been lucky to get 0.2 Miles. Further up a little in the 49 MHz area I found little if any improvement here, Civil airband 118-137MHz showed an increase in reception but nothing major.

Further up into the VHF PMR bands and police VHF I found again that with the mag mount fitted it brought in signals from much further than without it fitted. I tested this from between 138 and 169 MHz with very good results indeed. A Trunking system used by another county which I know is virtually impossible when mobile in my Town to follow was followed easily with the mag mount connected. There was some pager interference when in the close proximity of pager sites but this can not in any way be the blame of the mag mount, it is doing its job and its up to your scanner to do its job. It must be mentioned for those that like to monitor the 2M amateur band that the signal reception was increased immensely.

 

 

 

Moving up now into the UHF PMR band there was not so much of a noticeable increase as in the lower bands but I would say a 10% increase in this area.

This bit of kit does not have to stay attached to the car, you can put it in the middle of an old biscuit tin located by the window which makes this a fully portable antenna system which can be used in the car then when at your locaton, holiday or whatever use it in your caravan.

Conclusion:

Having lived with this aerial for nearly 3 months now I can say that it is a most welcome addition to my in-car entertainment and something I now consider a necessity. For general PMR type scanning when out and about this kit was just what the doctor ordered, especially on the mid VHF amateur, PMR band.

 

Price:

Stock Ref: 2021 at £29.95 will get £5 off if you mention UKMidlandscanner at only £24.95. Postage to UK is £1 per aerial.

If Civil and Military airband is Your thing then Stewart Aviation sell these also. Incidentally these receive extremely well on 70MHz Fire! Stock Ref: 2020 at £24.95 Contact Stewart aviation Tel: 01536 770962 Fax: 01536 770180