so ive been running a Diamond X50 on the roof for about two years now and it works fine for hitting the local 2m repeater which is maybe 18 miles out. no issues there. but theres another repeater i really want to get into, its like 55 miles and on a good day ill barely make it, lot of QSB and sometimes it just drops mid-over.

been thinking about swapping to a yagi pointed roughly in that direction but the problem is the local repeater is almost 90 degrees off from that bearing so id basically be choosing one or the other unless i put up two antennas or get a rotor which feels like massive overkill for just repeater work. someone at the club mentioned a higher gain collinear might be enough to close the link without having to aim anything. like a X510 or maybe one of the Comet verticals with more elements.

does that actually make sense or is the gain difference between a 5.5dbd collinear and a decent 5el yagi just too much to ignore at that distance. im not doing EME or anything crazy, just want reliable FM into a repeater 55 miles out on 2m. terrain is mostly flat with some tree coverage.

honestly at 55 miles on 2m FM the difference between a X50 and a X510 is probably not going to be the thing that saves you. youre talking maybe 3dB more gain on a good collinear and that sounds like a lot until you realize the path loss at that distance on a marginal day will eat that up pretty quick. a 5 or 6 element yagi pointed that direction is going to give you more like 10dBd and that is a completely different conversation.

the two antenna thing isnt as crazy as it sounds though. i run a vertical for local stuff and a small yagi on a cheap TV rotor for the DX repeaters, the rotor cost me like 30 bucks used and it works fine for this. you dont need a big azimuth rotor rated for a dish or anything, just something that turns slowly and holds position. depending on your roof situation it might actually be pretty simple. the coax switching is the fiddly bit but even that isnt terrible.

i had almost the exact same situation last year and ended up just putting a 3el tape measure yagi up temporarily to test the path before committing to anything permanent. thing cost me like 8 dollars in materials and the difference was immediately obvious, like full quieting where before i was getting scratchy audio. ended up building a proper 5el after that and havent touched it since. the rotor thing does seem like overkill but if the two repeaters are 90 degrees apart thats kind of a tough spot without one tbh