so ive been running a diamond x50 on the roof for probably 4 years now and its been fine for hitting the two local 2m repeaters and the 70cm one about 22 miles out. no complaints really but i keep reading about guys putting up small yagis and getting into machines they couldnt touch before and now im wondering if im leaving something on the table.

the thing is, my roof situation is kind of annoying. i've got a chimney mount and the x50 is up there on about a 6 foot mast so its reasonably clear of everything. adding a yagi means either a rotator or picking a fixed direction and my main repeater is actually behind me relative to where most of the dx would be so thats already a compromise.

has anyone run both side by side or switched from one to the other and can actually speak to the difference in real world terms? not looking for theoretical gain figures, more like did it actually matter for your day to day operating. the repeater stuff is probably 90% of what i do on vhf but i do jump on the occasional simplex net and i wouldnt mind being able to work more of that.

honestly for repeater work a collinear like your x50 is probably the right tool. yagis shine when you have a specific direction you care about, like if you were doing weak signal on 2m SSB or trying to hit a single distant repeater that's always in the same spot. the gain on a modest 5 or 6 element yagi is real but you give up the omnidirectional pattern and if your repeaters are spread around you'll drive yourself crazy with a rotator or end up missing stuff on fixed mount.

that said if there's one repeater 22 miles out that you're marginal on, a yagi pointed that direction on a fixed bracket might get you there with a lot less headache than a rotator setup. depends how bad you want it i guess. my honest take is stick with the collinear unless you have a specific reason not to.

i put up a 7 element M2 yagi on a cheap tv rotator a couple years back thinking i was gonna unlock all this vhf stuff and mostly what it did was remind me how little weak signal activity there is around here lol. for repeater work i went back to the collinear pretty quick because spinning a rotator to hit a machine gets old fast. the yagi is still up there and i use it during sporadic-e openings and the occasional contest but its not my everyday antenna by any stretch