so ive been doing these hilltop activations for a while now, mostly 2m and 70cm, and i keep going back and forth on whether to bother lugging a yagi up or just stick with the comet gp-9 clone i have on a painters pole. the collinear is way easier obviously but i feel like im leaving signal on the table when theres someone i really want to work on the far end of a tropo opening or whatever.

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?

yeah this is kind of the classic tradeoff isnt it. for casual hilltop stuff i just use a jpole or a slim jim rolled up in my bag and call it a day, but if youre actually chasing tropo or trying to work weak signal then honestly the yagi is worth it even if its annoying to deal with. the gain difference is real and 3-4 dB actually matters when conditions are marginal.

the pointing problem is the real issue in my experience. i built a little az/el indicator out of a compass and a cheap inclinometer just to know where im pointing, nothing fancy. helped a lot. also if your tripod is wobbly the whole thing is kind of moot because youre constantly readjusting and losing your place. i switched to one of those surveying tripods with the geared head and its way better for antenna work.

for what its worth i usually bring both now on longer activations. collinear goes up first so i can work locals while i set up the yagi, then switch over for the dx stuff. adds maybe 15 minutes to setup but i dont usually regret it.

i tried this exact setup last summer and ended up just leaving the yagi in the car most days honestly. the gain is nice but my feedline was kind of long and i think i was losing half of it anyway. probably need to redo that whole run before it makes sense to use it portably.