so ive been running a diamond x50 on my roof for maybe three years now and it works fine for hitting the local 2m and 70cm repeaters but theres one machine about 45 miles out that i can barely scratch. maybe 5-7 watts from the shack depending on what rig i grab, usually the 857 or my old FT-2900 just for 2m.

a buddy of mine keeps telling me to just put up a yagi but honestly i dont want to deal with pointing it every time i want to use a different repeater, like yeah i know i could mount it on a rotator but thats a whole project and the wife already has opinions about the x50 being up there. was thinking maybe a longer collinear would get me there without the drama, like a comet gp-9 or something with more gain. but then i read someone saying collinears past a certain gain start having takeoff angle issues at closer distances which i sort of half understand.

anybody actually done this comparison on a real install, not just theory? wondering if more dbi on a vertical is actually going to help or if im chasing something that wont matter at 45 miles over hilly terrain

yeah the takeoff angle thing is real and it bites people more than they expect. a high gain collinear is compressing that radiation pattern down toward the horizon which sounds great until the path has any terrain in the way and suddenly youre shooting under or over the thing depending on your elevation relative to the repeater. for flat terrain 45 miles out a gp-9 type antenna would probably help you some, but hilly is a different story.

honestly for that one specific machine a small yagi fixed-pointed at it isnt the worst idea even without a rotator. if the repeaters you use day to day are in different directions then yeah it gets complicated, but if that 45 mile one is more or less the same bearing as a couple others you could probably get away with a fixed mount slightly off true and cover a wider slice than people think. a 5 element yagi has like a 30-40 degree beamwidth at 3db down, its not a flashlight beam. something to consider before you start running rotator cable through the attic anyway

im in kind of the same boat actually, running a gp-9 and it definately helped over my old rubber duck situation but i dont have hilly terrain so cant say if thatd be your problem. one thing i did notice is my feedline was limiting me more than i thought, had like 40 feet of rg-8x and swapping to lmr-400 made a noticeable difference on receive at least. might be worth checking what youre running before spending money on a new antenna