MH> I live by a pretty good sized hill a little behind my house. I think this 
i
MH> the reason i cant pick the good downtown police. Sometimes i can, but im
MH> always having to move my scanner around every 30 minutes to follow 
it..heh.
MH> I was wondering if there is ANY antenna, that isnt a big ol' redneck 
lookin
MH> pole that sticks up 50 ft in the air, =-), that would let me pick this 
poli
MH> up. Like a small sized antenna i could put on the roof, but does it have 
to
MH> reach over the height of the hill? I hope not...please give me an answer.
Well radio waves do have the ability to scatter behind a hill and form
shadow zones, with varying degrees of RF intensity. (it would be pretty
complicated to tell how weak your exact position is behind the hill without
breaking out all the fancy RF Strength Meters, and (differential or absolute 
strength field meters)..    The best option is always to get a very high pole
(of between 15 - 30 feet should be sufficient. Radio Shack sells the 30
foot pole for a very cheap price).  The pole need not go over the hill,
just the higher you get the antenna up the stronger the signal will
likely be..     BUT..... You dont want to do that,.... SO... you have 
little option :(   You could try option number 2:  Which is to buy a 
preamplifier unit for $40 - $70 from most scanner suplly catalog
companies (GROVE pr ACE COMMUNICATIONS) or read the scanner magazines and
you'll see advertisment for pre-amplifierts..  This will boost the signal
upwards of 5 - 15 decibals (it is likely that you wouldnt get more than a
5 - 8 dB boost if the signal is weak to begin with..)   Your third option
is to get a Very High Directional YAGI Antenna which will give you a 
Guarenteed 15 to 20 dB boost in reception power...  Also the Yagi antenna
should have the same frequenc response as the signal you want in intercept.
So go with option #2 and #3 and you should be able to pick up the signals
just dandy.
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