so ive been running a quarter wave mag mount on the truck for a while now and its fine for hitting the local repeaters but i want to do some simplex stuff and maybe try for some tropo openings when they come up in the summer. been thinking about throwing a small 3 or 4 element yagi in the back of the truck and just pulling over and setting it up on a tripod when conditions look interesting.

the thing is i dont really know if its worth the hassle compared to just getting a better collinear up on the vehicle. like a 5/8 over 5/8 would give me some gain and id still be mobile. a portable yagi sounds cool in theory but in practice im guessing id never actually bother pulling over and setting it up. anyone done this? is the gain difference actually noticeable or am i overthinking it

honestly the collinear is probably the more realistic choice for how most people actually operate. ive got a hustler G6 on my roof rack and it does way better than the mag mount quarter wave i had before, decent amount of gain and the pattern is still omnidirectional which matters when youre moving around. the thing about a yagi for mobile tropo is yeah the gain is real but you have to know exactly where to point it and tropo paths shift, so unless youre parked and patient it gets tedious fast.

that said i do know a guy who throws a small M2 2M5WL in the hatch of his SUV and sets it up at hilltops, he makes some crazy contacts that way. its more of a portable/pedestrian mobile thing than true mobile operating though. depends what you actually want to do i guess.

the yagi idea is fun but yeah you probably wont stop as much as you think lol. i tried something similar with a 5 el beam on a painters pole strapped to a cooler and it worked great the two times i actually used it. now it lives in the garage. the collinear is just way more practical day to day, more gain than a whip and you dont have to think about it