Hi Steve,
I'm in Sydney in a the middle of a chatswood surrounded by glass buildings facing the opposite direction to a flight path, and about 12 nautical miles from Kingsford Smith airport (approx). I also live in an apartment building about 1/3rd of the way up the building. I've got very very little visible sky. With the stock antenna and cable, I was getting a maximum of about 15-20 nautical miles on a good day and huge (massive blind spots). The signal was el crappo at the best of times.
All of my aircraft signals come from glass reflections in the surrounding buildings LOL.
Anyway, I couldn't find anything decent in Australia so I bought the following and also bought 5 metres of westflex 103 cable and had them shipped to Australia. Wasn't that expensive either. The service from both of the sites was great. Had to order via paypal and email but received both items from two different places in the UK in about a week.
The antenna was from here:
http://www.ssejim.co.uk/26-sseads1090sj.htm The guy that sells them and makes the brackets is named Jim and was very helpful.
Anyway, the difference between the stock and the external with the westflex cable is like night and day. I still get all my signal from reflections, and still lose signal pretty often, but it's very much improved. I now regularly pick up aircraft about 215 nautical miles away. Unfortunately, I still have my blind spots so the 215 nautical miles is only in one direction, but I still get much improved signal from other directions as well.
The antenna now sits on my veranda railing at my apartment. Still surrounded by buildings with very little visible sky. I would highly recommend this antenna with the Westflex cable if you're wanting to improve your reception. It's not ideal to order from the UK instead of Australia but then again, the quality of the imported antenna and cable is well worth it in my opinion.
Geoff
