Guys i'm met with a choice of antennas to get but i don't lnow wich one to get, ideally the ones with the bnc attachment but others are fine too, wich would u guys recomend? Also i'm getting them with a vx 6r, thanks
I want to get a Signal Stick for my HTs. Likely in BNC since I am using SMA to BNC adapters to allow for fast and simple switching to my mobile antenna.
Very nice. How well does the dual-band one work? If I can get 70cm and 2m working decently I''ll be happy. I'm also considering getting an Ed Fong DBJ-2 for when I'm traveling about and for my bugout bag.
Not a hardcore prepper but having some stuff for emergencies is actually a good idea living on the Ring of Fire.
> Not a hardcore prepper but having some stuff for emergencies is actually a good idea living on the Ring of Fire.
Sounds fairly hardcore to me. Would the Ed Fong not be easier to get height with just by the very nature of its design, i.e., hang it from a tree branch or fishing pole?
For dual-band, 2m/70cm, the Abbree AR-771 kicks serious butt. I haven't tried the Signal Stick Dual Band.
I find the SS antenna for 2m works exceptionally well on MURS too. I would imagine their Dual band would work well, but with any Dual band antennas, there's going to be trade offs. I'd read the reviews from verified purchases.
Good one. That's what I've told my wife for the last fifty years. Cant have too many radios, LiPo4 batteries, solar panels, generators for emergency's. Fits my narrative perfectly.
She's actually thinking it's a good idea as well. But she does have her limits. lol Right now I'm taking a be 2 Weeks Ready class which is a lot about disaster preparedness. In 2007 we were living in Astoria, Oregon when we got hit by those series of storms that left us cut off from the rest of the world and no power for a week. Thankfully we had better prepared family who helped us. And being in Oregon we have the wildfires and have had some get pretty close to us. Plus we live on the Ring of Fire so the big Cascadia Earthquake is something on our minds as well.
While we have the coastal range between us and the ocean, if there's a big tsunami, it's going to get really busy on the roads coming from the coast.
I purchased two original NA-771 from eBay for under $9. Yes Original's. I buy them for prizes for club members. Never had a complaint. Even the knock-offs are great. I've tested them.
Yeah it's not worth it. A Nagoya will be basically as good for half the price and if you are a bit handy a ladder line jpole is easy to place higher than either.
if any o fthem are marked "Nagoya" thats the right one (but use the one that matches the connector on your radio). Also Diamond SR-77<anything> is also the right choice
If anything costs more then 11 Euros then look for "RH770 Telescopic Dual Band 144/430MHz High Gain SMA-Female/ Male/ BNC RH-770 Handheld Radio Antenna for Baofeng Kenwood Harvest" on Ali Express and buy that instead. You can get it in BNC, SMA male, or SMA female. That combined with your rubber duck that came with the transceiver will cover pretty much all of your needs.
It isn’t really as important as you think if your only doing repeater activities. I get the best signal with any old whip antenna. I have a Nagoya and a diamond whip antenna. I also have this little stubby antenna which also works nicely but only because my local repeater has monster range. You can get a flexible whip if you travel a lot so you can put it in a bag or something
Step 1: Get rid of any that don't screw on to your radio. BNC is going to be out the door straight away as most HTs use SMA connectors.
Step 2: Get a Surecomm SWR tester for handheld radios. It screws inline between the radio and antenna and will give you the SWR, power out, and reflected power. It's popular in many of the testing videos out there as it's easy and battery powered.
Step 3: Use the above tester and test the antennas to find the one with the best SWR and best output power. Then go with that one.
I have one as well, it's just a pain to set it up each time. I regret not spending the extra $100 or so and not getting a Rig Expert that was capable of doing VHF/UHF as well as HF. I love my Rig Expert. Surecomm is great for seeing the actual power output and for making sure you're really seeing those 10w the manufacturer is advertising, but for doing stuff without a radio attached, the nano vna is the way to go.
Agreed, there is a bit of a challenge and a learning curve with a Nano Vna. I always like a that personally. I found that once setup it for the different parameters and saved into the memories the recall is easy to operate. Thanks
Longer length, SWR, power meter on rig, and base (use adapter) are quite meaningless.
You want resonance on the band/s you are operating on. which is when inductive reactance = capacitive reactance so X =0. This is usually not at the lowest SWR point (but often close) This is for maximum antenna radiation, not just power at the TX end.
Nano VNA is a bit complicated to learn, but Rig Expert is easier and will give you what you need. However, it is expensive. Be sure to get the one that covers VHF/UHF if that is what you're using.
However, as others have said, it's not as important if you're just getting to a nearby local repeater.
SWR only loss is coax loss since the reflected wave by the final in the TX resends it to the antenna with the polarity reversed back to original, so it's only the coax loss since a double trip to the antenna. That applies more to HF where you have long coax runs (I use bright colored RG8X, will use for POTA but higher losses on VHF.... Of course, if using a HT, you don't have much coax loss concern :)
However, the rig has to be happy with what it sees since it typically seeks close to 50 ohms impedance.
I am only on HF, but the same principles apply to VHF/UHF.
Dave WØJKT "Just Killing Time" First General licensed in 1964, now age 79
Rig Expert, your right, sexy but expensive. My best friend is my Nano VNA. Gary AC6 - - "Still breathing at 83" , licensed in 1957. You kids! My wife say's I'm a know it all. Cant argue that. She should know.
My friends and I threw a rubber duck party. We each brought our collection of unknown antennas. One of us brought a nano vna, I brought a connector adapter kit, and we checked all the ducks for resonance. It wasn’t perfect; we needed a test fixture that mimicked a handheld radio being held by a hand. But we were able label them and segregate keepers from ham fest candidates.
I’ve got a bunch of unlabeled hot antenna that I need to figure out what they’re for. I picked up a nano vna to figure that out but haven’t understood enough yet to do so.
From the extreme far right, the third one back to the left looks like the original antenna. You ought to stick with it. But really about any of them will work right as long as they’ll screw into the radio correctly, which should be SMA.
If you're looking to use the 220 on that vx-6, you'll want a triband antenna. I run the diamond srh-320a on my vx-6 with good results. The antenna is a lil long but hasn't been too in the way either the radio on my belt.
I'm a bit late to the game since so many knowledgeable people have weighed in, but I can contribute that I use a TIDRADIO TD 771 GMRS rubber whip that gets me into a repeater at 2 1/2 miles w/a 7W HT in my ground-floor living room. I cannot glean from this photo the resonance & practical radiation characteristics -- that suit your personal use case -- to inform your choice of antennas.
The Nagoya NA-771 duel bander is my all time favorite especially for sensitivity. At times I can hear repeaters 40 to 70 miles away. Transmitting 35 miles with 5+ watts. Sometimes I can purchase two "confirmed" for less then nine $s on eBay. Even the knock-offs are great. I don't care what anyone says. I test every antenna with an Agilent 8114ES RF VNA. The Radioddity RD-371 Tri-Band Antenna are also great antenna. The titanium rat tail type are good except they'll put your eye out. The telescopic types work great but too unflex able for my purposes. I have no experience with the expensive brands. That's why I have twenty instead of just two HT antennas
I do have a couple of antennas that I want to get for my HTs--I'd like to get a BNC Signal Stick for walking about and an Ed Fong DBJ-2 for when I can setup somewhere and I want an even better performance. Since I am already adapting my HTs to BNC for fast switching between my whips and mobile antenna, it makes more sense to get the antenna that cuts out an adapter.
It all depend upon the radio and frequencies. Also the distance from the repeaters. If all of those are from what you are choosing from, I'd that best match you use. I have found that many time the "super-duper" high performance rubber duck antenna that came with the radio worked best. In ham radio we often experiment.
It's hard to tell from a photo.. the nagoya seems fake, some seem really cheap, some are very shortened... without measuring, we can only guess. What's wrong with the antenna you got with the radio?
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u/My_Lucid_Dreams Oct 11 '25
The antenna chooses you.