so ive been running a diamond x50 on my roof for about two years now and it does fine for the local 2m/70cm repeaters, no complaints really. but theres this one repeater about 55 miles out that i can only hit maybe 60% of the time depending on weather and i guess atmospheric stuff. a buddy of mine keeps telling me to put up a yagi and just point it at that one but im not sure i want to give up the omnidirectional coverage just for one stubborn repeater.

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

yeah the dual antenna setup with a coax switch is actually pretty common and works fine, i ran that exact config for a while with an x300 and a homebrew 5el yagi on 2m. the switch itself isnt really the weak link as long as you get a decent one — i used a daiwa cs-201 and never had issues even at 50w. the SO-239 thing youre worried about is a non issue honestly.

that said 55 miles on 2m with 50w and a decent collinear should work more days than not depending on the terrain between you and the repeater. have you checked what the path looks like on something like heywhatsthat or even just google earth with elevation profiles? sometimes its one ridge or a building cluster thats the culprit and a few more feet of height on the collinear does more than a yagi pointed at a slightly wrong angle. id check the path first before committing to the yagi route

55 miles on 2m is doable but yeah its marginal without some real gain in that direction. i have a M2 2M5WL at about 35 feet and i can hit a repeater 70 miles away pretty reliably but thats a 5 wavelength yagi, its a beast. for your situation honestly a small 3 or 4 element yagi on a separate mast angled at that far repeater might be the cleanest solution. you keep the x50 for everyday stuff and just flip to the yagi when you want that far one. the coax switch thing works, just make sure whatever switch you buy is rated for UHF frequencies too if you ever want to use it on 70cm or you can get some surprises with insertion loss