did the hole just forward of the rear edge of the roof, roughly centered. used a step bit and went slow, had a friend hold a shop vac underneath the headliner which actually worked surprisingly well for catching most of the metal shavings. ran the coax down the A pillar and tucked it behind the door seal, pretty clean route. the NMO itself is a Larsen mount and i threw a 5/8 wave 2m whip on it to start.

honestly the difference on receive is noticeable compared to the mag mount i was using. im running into the same mobile rig so its not that. the mag mount was always kind of sketchy on the ground plane since it was sitting on the bed cover which is fiberglass. that was probably most of my problem. anyway now im wondering if its worth putting up something for 70cm too or just getting a dual band whip. the single band 2m one is a Larsen 2/70 actually wait no that came with the package, its the NMO2/70B i think, so its already dual band. nevermind. its working fine.

The thing is im not sure its worth the trade off. Right now the collinear covers everything in all directions which is nice for simplex calling around and hitting different machines. If i put a yagi up for that one repeater im basically committing to a fixed path and losing the omni coverage. Unless i do both antennas which means another feedline run and honestly my coax situation on the roof is already kind of a mess.

Has anyone actually switched from a collinear to a dedicated yagi for a single path like this and found it worth it, or did you end up missing the omni too much and putting the collinear back up?

the question is whether to go with a decent collinear up on the chimney bracket or just bite the bullet and put up a yagi pointed at the main repeater about 35 miles out. the repeater direction is pretty fixed for me, like 99% of what i care about is roughly NNW from here. but i also dont want to completely kill my omnidirectional capability in case someone is calling from a weird direction or i want to hit the APRS digipeater which is sort of southeast.

height isnt really the issue, i can get to about 30 feet on the chimney bracket or maybe 40 if i do a push-up mast in the backyard. feedline run would be maybe 60 feet either way so coax loss isnt dramatically different. im just not sure the gain from a yagi is worth giving up the omni pattern, especially since i dont have a rotor and wasnt really planning on getting one.

the x50 is up about 25 feet on a pushup mast, coax run is maybe 40 feet of LMR-400 so losses arent terrible. ive tried bumping power on my ft-7900 to 50w and it helps a little but not reliably. wondering if anyone has done the split setup where you run both a collinear and a yagi and switch between them, or if thats just adding unnecessary complexity. also not sure if my SO-239 on the radio can even handle a coax switch cleanly without introducing issues

anyway just curious what others have done in similar situations before i start drilling more holes in my roof

the question is whether its worth lugging a yagi up a hill versus just going with a longer collinear that has more gain on paper. i know the collinear gain is kind of a compromise since its spreading it horizontally but on a summit that might actually be okay depending on the situation. a yagi obviously gives you real directional gain and you can aim it but then youre also dealing with rotating it manually or just picking a direction and hoping.

ive been looking at the arrow antenna 2m/70cm yagi and also the elk log periodic which i know some people swear by for satellite work. anyone actually used both? the elk seems more portable but idk if the gain is really there on 2m compared to a proper yagi. just trying to figure out what makes sense before i spend the money

but then i was at a club meeting last month and this guy says my ground plane is probably garbage and i'm leaving a few dB on the table. now i cant stop thinking about it. drilling a hole in the roof of a truck i'm still making payments on feels like a commitment though. is it actually worth it or is this one of those things that sounds better on paper and makes almost no real difference on the air

However, higher gain means narrower elevation pattern. For local repeater work and some weak signal, which would you choose? Collinears concentrate signal at low radiation angles for better DX but I'm concerned about coverage gaps.

i did the math on the coax loss and yeah 240 isnt great at 440 but shouldnt be catastrophic for 40 feet right? im running 50w out of an IC-2730. wondering if maybe the antenna connector is the issue because i did that PL-259 crimp myself and it wasnt my cleanest work honestly. or maybe the x50 just isnt that great on 70cm, ive seen some people say the pattern gets weird up there. anyone dealt with this?

the thing is i dont really want to deal with a massive antenna when im already hauling a radio and battery out somewhere. i was looking at the Arrow 3 element and also just random homebrew stuff on QRZ. does the gain difference actually translate in the real world or is it one of those things that sounds good on paper but you end up fighting with the antenna mount the whole time and wishing you just brought the whip

the thing is a collinear is way more convenient to set up and i dont have to worry about pointing it, but a 5 or 6 element yagi would obviously smoke it for gain in one direction. my typical activation is maybe 2-3 hours on a summit, usually working local repeaters and sometimes trying simplex contacts. not doing any serious EME or anything, just casual portable vhf.

anyone done a comparison between the two in a real-world portable scenario? wondering if the directional nature of the yagi becomes annoying when youre just casually ragchewing vs trying to work a specific distant station

the thing is i had a buddy who brought his 9 element yagi on a recent outing and yeah ok the difference was noticeable especially working some of the weaker stations but it was also kind of a pain to deal with in the wind and getting it pointed right takes time. i guess my question is whether people who do this regularly think the gain tradeoff is worth it for casual portable ops or am i just overthinking it and the collinear is fine for 90% of what ill be doing up there

i should mention im mostly doing FM simplex and the occasional linked repeater, not contesting or anything serious like that

the repeater im trying to hit is roughly northeast of where i drive most days which is kind of convenient but obviously not always. anyone actually run a yagi on a mobile install? seems like itd be a pain to aim while driving and i guess you wouldnt really aim it at all, just point it the direction you usually travel and hope for the best. or maybe the gain from a longer collinear would just solve this without the directional headache. the Diamond NR770HB has been on my radar for a while, gain is supposed to be pretty decent for an omni.

also wondering if its a feedline issue, i have about 12 feet of whatever coax came with the mag mount which is probably garbage but i dont know what loss im actually seeing there. maybe thats the low hanging fruit before i go buying new antennas.

the yagis i've been looking at are the m2 2m5wl and the arrow ii for dual band. the arrow seems like the obvious portable choice but ive heard the gain figures on those shorter yagis are kinda optimistic and you have to be really careful about aiming which on a windy hilltop can be a pain. i did one activation where the wind was just destroying my setup and i was glad i had the collinear because i didnt have to worry about pointing it.

for working into repeaters and doing some ssb on 2m the collinear seems fine but if theres ever a weak signal situation or i want to try for some dx off a tropo opening i feel like i'd want that directional gain. anyone been through this same decision? do you guys just bring both or is that overkill for casual /p ops

a buddy of mine swears i should just put up a yagi pointed at the repeater and be done with it. like a 5 or 6 element job on a fixed mount. makes sense to me on paper but then i lose the ability to hit any other repeaters or work simplex in different directions which i do occasionally for things like ARES nets. honestly i dont know if the gain from a yagi would even make that much difference vs just getting the collinear up higher. im at about the limit of what my current mast can do so getting a taller tower isnt really in the cards right now. has anyone actually swapped from a omni to a directional for this kind of situation and was it worth it

the repeater im hitting is about 18 miles out and i can reach it fine on a handheld from the backyard so its not like im desperate, but i want something permanent and a bit more capable. theres also one other repeater about 90 degrees off to the right that id like to be able to hit on occasion. the problem with the yagi obviously is the fixed direction thing unless i build some kind of rotator setup which feels like overkill for 2m repeater work.

anyone run a decent collinear on a fixed mount and been happy with it? or am i overthinking this and just need to put up a 5/8 wave vertical and be done with it

the thing is i dont really do EME or meteor scatter or anything like that, mostly just some casual SSB on 144.200 and occasionally trying to work stations during contests when i have time. right now i feel like i'm missing a lot of the action because guys with beams are just walking all over me even at 100 watts.

what i'm trying to understand is whether the gain difference between like a 9 element yagi vs the collinear is as significant as people make it out to be in actual use -- not just on paper. the X50 is supposedly around 6dBd on 2m but i know that's the manufacturer's number so who knows. a decent 9el probably does 12-13dBd? that's a big swing if the numbers are real. anyone made this switch and noticed a real difference in SSB contacts or weak signal stuff?

anyone done this on a 2018 accord? really dont want to screw this up since its my daily driver and the xyl will kill me if i mess up her car lol

My hesitation is obviously drilling a hole in a truck i still owe payments on. The lip mount option seems like a decent middle ground but i talked to a guy at the club last week who said lip mounts introduce a ground plane problem because youre not actually bonded to the roof properly. Is that actually a noticeable thing on VHF/UHF or is he being overly particular about it? Like for everyday 2m and 70cm use hitting the local repeaters im not sure it would matter much.

Also if i do go NMO what feedline should i be running — the truck cab is pretty tight and i dont want a huge connector situation under the headliner. Currently using whatever coax came with the mag mount which i suspect is garbage anyway.

the site is pretty exposed, around 1200ft asl and i can already hit a bunch of repeaters 80-100 miles out without much trouble which tells me the location is doing most of the heavy lifting. but when i try working SSB simplex on 144.200 its kinda hit or miss and i'm pretty sure its my antenna holding me back more than the radio (ft-817 running about 4w)

i've been looking at the innovantennas ltb series and also an old cushcraft 13b2 that someone local has for sale. the cushcraft is long like almost 12ft i think and i dont really have a way to rotate it right now so that's a complication. honestly not sure if a fixed yagi pointing northeast would even make sense given where most of the activity seems to be, at least on the days i've been monitoring

anyone running yagis fixed at a hilltop site or does it basically require an azimuth rotator to be useful

did a test a few weeks back where i had both antennas up at the same time and switched between them on the 857 — the yagi was definitely better into certain directions but the collinear was surprisingly competitive when the other station was roughly in the right direction anyway. not exactly scientific i know.

the yagi i have is a cheap 7 element arrow knockoff thing, works fine but its kind of a pain to point accurately when the mast is just a camera tripod. maybe im just not using it right. anyone else do this kind of portable stuff and settled on one or the other?

The frequency is spot-on at 146.52 MHz, but the impedance is clearly wrong. Should I focus on trimming individual elements or adjusting the spacing between elements? Also wondering if my 300Ω ladder line matching section (currently 17.25") needs adjustment. Ground plane is four 1/4λ radials at the base.

Any insights on where to start troubleshooting would be helpful.

I've read that 1/4λ antennas perform better at higher take-off angles. Would switching to a Larsen NMO-27 or similar 1/4λ dual-band antenna improve my coverage to mountain-top repeaters? My mount is center roof with good ground plane. Any real-world experience with this trade-off would be appreciated.

anyway i finally started actually looking into it more seriously. the mag mount i have now is one of the comet ones, can't remember the exact model, sits on the roof centered pretty well. the antenna itself is a diamond NR770RNMO so technically its already NMO terminated but im just running it through one of those mag mount adapters. im losing some efficiency there i know.

has anyone done a through-hole NMO on a leased truck and lived to tell about it? or is there a lip mount or gutter clip option that actually performs close to a true roof mount without the drill? i dont really want to hear about the hatch mount solutions because the truck is a crew cab and it just doesnt work geometrically for me

the run goes straight down the side of the house through a hole i drilled near the window, no sharp bends or anything, feedline looks fine visually. SWR on the rig meter reads under 1.5 which i guess isnt terrible but something feels off. im wondering if 35 feet of RG-8X is just eating too much at 146mhz or if maybe my ground plane situation on the roof mount isnt ideal. the antenna is on a j-pipe mount off the chimney, probably 18 inches away from the brick.

would upgrading to LMR-400 actually make a noticeable difference for a 35ft run or am i overthinking this and the problem is somewhere else