so ive been doing a lot of portable ops from a local hilltop, mostly 2m and 70cm, and right now im running a Diamond X50 on a painters pole which honestly works pretty well for the casual stuff. but ive been thinking about dragging a yagi up there for when i want to actually reach out further or work some weak signal stuff.

the thing is im not sure if a 5 or 6 element yagi is even worth the setup time vs just sticking with the collinear. the hilltop has decent elevation, maybe 800ft above the surrounding terrain, so the omni covers a lot already. but theres a repeater about 140 miles out i can sometimes hit and im wondering if a yagi pointed that direction would make it more consistent.

does anyone actually do this regularly, like bring a yagi out for hilltop portable work? curious what the workflow is like and whether you bother with a rotator or just hand point it

yeah i do exactly this, been doing it for a few years now. i built a 7 element M2 style yagi for 2m and it breaks down into like a 3 foot bundle so its not that bad to carry up honestly. hand pointing is fine unless youre doing something that needs a specific heading for a long time, in which case even a cheap tv rotator zip tied to a tripod works surprisingly well.

for 140 miles on 2m that hilltop elevation is going to do more for you than any antenna gain will, but a yagi is still going to help with the noise floor and pulling out weak signals. the collinear is great for working everything around you but when you want to dig out a specific distant station the yagi just wins. i usually bring both actually, X50 stays up for general use and i swap to the yagi when i want to work something specific. takes maybe 2 minutes to switch.

the repeater at 140 miles, is that even linked to anything or is it just range testing? asking because ive chased some of those distant repeaters and half the time nobody is actually monitoring them lol. but yeah a 5 element yagi makes a noticeable difference, you can really hear it when you swing it on and off axis on a marginal signal. i wouldnt bother with a rotator for portable stuff personally, hand pointing is fine and its one less thing to break or forget the power cable for