so ive been running a 5/8 wave mag mount on the roof of my truck for probably 3 years now and it works fine for hitting the local 2m repeater but i got curious after watching a guy at the club meeting pull out a j-pole he built and talk about putting up a proper base antenna. started looking at collinears and yagis and now im kind of down a rabbit hole i didnt expect.

the thing is i dont really do any weak signal stuff, mostly just ragchew on the repeater and occasional simplex when the guys do a net. so would something like a diamond x50 or x200 on a mast actually make a noticeable difference or am i just chasing gain numbers on a spec sheet. the repeater is maybe 18 miles out and i can hit it fine from home on my HT with a rubber duck if im near a window so its not like im struggling.

also been looking at yagis just out of curiosity - i know they're more directional which is kind of useless for repeater work unless i only ever talk to one direction but man the gain numbers are tempting. someone at the club mentioned a cushcraft 13b2 and i have no idea what to make of that. anyway just curious what you guys actually run at home for 2m.

for repeater use a collinear is almost always the right call over a yagi, the omnidirectional pattern just makes more sense. the x50 is a solid antenna and honestly pretty hard to beat for the money. i ran one for years on a 20 foot mast and it was noticeably better than the jpole i had before, not night and day but enough that i stopped missing the occasional check-in on the repeater net when i was running low power.

the 13b2 is a great antenna but its really for weak signal work or maybe satellite if youre into that, pointing it at a repeater 18 miles away would be overkill and youd have to deal with rotating it if you want to talk to anyone else. unless you have a specific reason to go directional id stick with a collinear. coax quality matters way more than people think too, dont cheap out and run rg58 up 30 feet of mast or youll eat up whatever gain you bought.

yeah the x200 is what i ended up with and its been fine. mounted it on a painters pole strapped to the chimney which is maybe not the most elegant solution but its been up two winters now. only thing i'd say is get a decent feedline, i originally ran some mystery coax i had laying around and swapped it for lmr400 and could tell the difference on receive especially.