As Muffin states VHF is a LOS comms system, if you ignore the earth hugging bit at certain freqs.
What you can do with a scanner, is to get an antenna that covers your main band of interest.
I have an ICOM R5. The standard antenna is a rather weedy affair. It has to cover the range of the unit which is from Medium wave i.e. in the upper KHz band up to about 1200 MHz.
Because I listen mainly to V/UHF freqs I bought an antenna that is tuned to that frequency band. Cost about £20. It improved my listening no end. Still need a good LOS though. It will improve the S/N ratio.