so ive been thinking about this for a few weeks now and cant quite make up my mind. i do a fair amount of hilltop activations with the local club, mostly 2m and 70cm FM, sometimes SSB on 2m if conditions are decent. right now im using a telescoping j-pole which honestly works fine but i feel like im leaving some gain on the table especially when were trying to hit repeaters that are marginal from certain summits.

the question is basically whether to build or buy a 5 or 6 element yagi for 2m, or just go with a decent collinear like a diamond X50 or X200 type thing. the yagi obviously gives more gain in one direction but the collinear is omnidirectional which matters when youre working multiple stations around you. i can build a simple yagi from some aluminum rod and a tape measure obviously but then i gotta point it and that gets annoying when youre also trying to log contacts and deal with weather.

anyone done both and have a strong opinion either way? gear already have is an FT-60 and a TH-D74 so nothing fancy on the radio side, just want a better antenna situation for portable ops.

for what youre describing id probably lean collinear honestly. the omnidirectional pattern just makes life easier when youre doing social activations with the club — nobody wants to stand there cranking a yagi around every time someone new calls in from a different direction. a diamond X50 is pretty robust for portable use too, doesnt take much to get it vertical on a camera tripod or a small mast section.

that said, if you start getting into weak signal SSB work on 2m youll eventually want a beam because gain actually matters there and the omni will frustrate you. maybe just do the collinear now and build a cheap tape measure yagi to throw in the bag for when conditions are interesting. the tape measure design is light enough that its not a real burden and you can collapse it down. done both for years and thats the setup i keep coming back to.

yeah i actually ran into this exact same debate last year. ended up with a 3 element yagi i built from the ARRL handbook plans and honestly its kind of a pain at busy activations like the other guy said. great when im specifically chasing DX or trying to link to a distant repeater but the rest of the time im just twisting it around constantly trying to figure out where the signal is coming from. the collinear is probably the more practical call for general portable use. just my two cents, mileage will vary etc.