so ive been running a dual band mag mount on the truck for a couple years now, works fine for hitting the local repeaters but i got into doing some simplex work and occasional satellite stuff and honestly the mag mount just doesnt cut it anymore. the NMO whip i have now is decent but i keep wondering if theres a better way to do this without going full roof penetration just yet.

someone at the club mentioned doing a small 3 element yagi on a window mount for when im parked up doing portable ops, which actually sounds kinda interesting. but then someone else said just get a collinear with more gain and be done with it. like a tram 1185 or something in that range. my main issue is i want more punch on 2m for simplex out to maybe 30-40 miles when conditions are decent, and the current setup just isnt doing that reliably.

anyone actually run a yagi from a vehicle, even just parked? feels a bit silly maybe but if it works it works

the collinear vs yagi thing really comes down to what you're trying to do. for general driving around and hitting repeaters, a decent collinear like the tram you mentioned or honestly even a comet SBB-5 does fine, more gain than a rubber duck, still omnidirectional. but if you want to actually work simplex out to 30-40 miles from a parked spot, a yagi is a completely different tool. the gain difference is real and so is the front to back rejection which actually helps more than people think when theres qrm.

i ran a 5 element M2 on a camera tripod out the back of my suv for a while for portable ops, its kind of a pain to set up but on 2m it was night and day compared to the whip. got into a repeater about 55 miles out that my mag mount couldnt even hear. the trick is pointing it obviously, you gotta know roughly where you're aiming which isnt always practical from a moving vehicle but for parked ops totally worth it imo

yeah i do the yagi on a tripod thing from the back of my jeep pretty regularly for sota activations and it works great. dont overthink the mounting situation, a cheap photo tripod and a mast clamp gets you there. i wouldnt bother trying to do it while actually driving though, the pointing thing makes it pretty useless unless youre stationary

the tram 1185 is fine for what it is but if you want actual gain for simplex work the collinear still only gets you maybe 5-6 dBd at best and thats vertical polarization only. a 3 element yagi is probably around 6 dBd too but you can tilt it for cross-pol if you want to mess with satellite passes. depends what matters more to you