so ive been doing more hilltop portable work lately, mostly 2m and 70cm, and im trying to decide whether to build or buy a small yagi or just stick with a collinear for these activations. right now im running a diamond X50 on a mast and its fine but i feel like im leaving gain on the table especially when im trying to hit a specific repeater 80+ miles out or work some weak signal ssb stuff on 2m.

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

I went through the exact same debate last summer. ended up building a 5 element 2m yagi from a design i found online and honestly for hilltop work its been pretty worth it. yeah you have to point it but after a while you get a feel for where stuff is and it becomes second nature. the gain difference vs my old vertical was noticeable, pulled in signals that were basically noise floor before.

that said i also bring a slim jim on a fishing pole for the times i just want to throw something up quick and not think about it. use the yagi when i actually want to work someone specific or the band seems marginal. having both options is probably the real answer if youre not trying to minimize weight too much.

for repeater work at 80 miles the yagi is kind of overkill unless the terrain is really rough — most of the time a decent collinear on a high point will get you there. where the yagi really shines for me is ssb weak signal, like if youre trying to work a grid on 144.200 then yeah you want that directional gain and front-to-back ratio. but for mixed casual use i'd honestly just run the collinear and save yourself the headache of rotating it every few minutes during a qso