so ive been doing a fair bit of hilltop portable work lately, mostly 2m and 70cm, and i keep going back and forth on whether to bother lugging a yagi up there or just stick with the collinear i already have mounted on my mast at home. the collinear is a diamond X50 and its great for local repeater stuff but i feel like im leaving a lot on the table for weak signal SSB and the occasional satellite pass.

the thing is i dont really have a rotor setup yet and pointing a yagi manually on a hilltop when its windy is kind of a pain. i was looking at a cheap 5 element 2m yagi i found at a swap meet last year, never tested it properly. maybe around 9-10 dBd? the tag was half rubbed off. anyway the question is really whether the gain difference is actually noticeable in practice or if its one of those things that looks good on paper and doesnt make much difference in the field. i know the math says its a big deal but real world experience would help

honestly yeah you'll notice it, especially on SSB weak signal. the X50 is a solid antenna but its omni so youre spreading that power everywhere. when i switched from a collinear to even a modest 4 element yagi for 2m portable ops the difference was pretty clear — signals that were just barely readable came up maybe an S unit or so, sometimes more depending on the path. the manual pointing thing is annoying but you get used to it, i just use a cheap compass and a rough bearing from my phone maps app. takes like 30 seconds once you know roughly where the other station is.

for satellites specifically the yagi is almost mandatory unless you're working SO-50 from a really clean hilltop with nothing around you. the X50 will work for some passes but you'll miss a lot of the low elevation stuff

the 5 element you got at the swap meet is probably fine, those old yagis are hard to kill. i'd just check the driven element and make sure the balun or matching section isnt corroded. a dirty match will eat your gain faster than anything. slap it on an analyzer if you have one and see where it resonates, if its close to 144.200 for SSB or wherever you're operating you're probably good to go. worst case its a swap meet antenna so not much lost if it turns out to be junk