Car with Five Antenna

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MikeAqua

7773 posts

Uber Geek

#293706 9-Feb-2022 14:32

A couple of weeks back I spotted a car with 5 antennae on it. All wire single strand stainless steel wire type.

Car was a red Commodore station wagon.

Three ~600mm antennae at the front end of the roof and two ~300mm antennae at the back end of the roof.

I'm curious to know what the purpose would be.

Specialist plain clothes police vehicle, radio spectrum monitoring, 'them' 😱...

Mike

gzt

17104 posts

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Lifetime subscriber

#2864157 9-Feb-2022 16:03

I observed a similar Skoda vehicle with police lights flashing.

wonderferret

139 posts

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Lifetime subscriber

#2864163 9-Feb-2022 16:18

prob police car from northland as they have radios for
whatever the northland unencrypted radios are and what ever the auckland encrypted radio bands are as they travel between the regions

MikeAqua

7773 posts

Uber Geek

#2864176 9-Feb-2022 16:36

This was in the last few weeks so I was in Marlborough somewhere. I guess it could have been a Northland police car, but if so it was a long way from home.

Mike

wonderferret

139 posts

Master Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#2864181 9-Feb-2022 16:41

prob chch car for the same reasons :-)
I think on AK, Wtn and chch are encrypted and every one else isnt so some cars have to cover all the bases. See them quite a lot around the bryderwynns just south of Whangarei

elpenguino

3419 posts

Uber Geek

#2864182 9-Feb-2022 16:41

MikeAqua:

A couple of weeks back I spotted a car with 5 antennae on it. All wire single strand stainless steel wire type.

Car was a red Commodore station wagon.

Three ~600mm antennae at the front end of the roof and two ~300mm antennae at the back end of the roof.

I'm curious to know what the purpose would be.

Specialist plain clothes police vehicle, radio spectrum monitoring, 'them' 😱...

The dog units are usually well equipped to cover all the bands, and usually wagons too.

The super specialist plain clothes types won't be so well advertised, natch. One I encountered professionally years ago had the transceiver connected to the telescopic car radio aerial so was totally camouflaged in that regard.

Most of the posters in this thread are just like chimpanzees on MDMA, full of feelings of bonhomie, joy, and optimism. Fred99 8/4/21

SATTV

1648 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

#2864184 9-Feb-2022 16:44

If the three antenna were in a triangle formation ( delta ) It may be for RFDF ( Direction finding )

It could be Police / Fire or a number of other services,

It may also be an incidence car that has repeaters in it ( VHF to UHF ) so that coverage is provided where there is not normally coverage.

I doubt police would need more than one radio to go from Digital to Analogue due to region, I would have thought that the radios would be able to be in either mode by programming. However if it was on different bands for analogue and digital it may require two radios.

John

I know enough to be dangerous

SATTV

1648 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

#2864187 9-Feb-2022 16:46

elpenguino:

The super specialist plain clothes types won't be so well advertised, natch. One I encountered professionally years ago had the transceiver connected to the telescopic car radio aerial so was totally camouflaged in that regard.

I have heard of that but never seen it, there also used to be garages scattered all over town for the covert cars to go in to rather than the police station.

John

I know enough to be dangerous

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elpenguino

3419 posts

Uber Geek

#2864188 9-Feb-2022 16:49

SATTV:

It may also be an incidence car that has repeaters in it ( VHF to UHF ) so that coverage is provided where there is not normally coverage.

Ah yes, they do that so they can run off into the bushes but as long as their UHF handhelds are in range of the car, they get comms back to base.

Most of the posters in this thread are just like chimpanzees on MDMA, full of feelings of bonhomie, joy, and optimism. Fred99 8/4/21