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Reviewed in the United States on September 30, 2024
The antenna arrived on time and in great shape. The attached coax is a bit stiff, unmarked, but is very durable. The coax length is advertised as 8 feet, but mine measured 9 feet 6 plus inches which is good.As for performance -- it works as I expected. I attach antenna to the car roof and the female SMA directly to my Quansheng HT for use inside my vehicle. I am able to hit the local repeater all over the metropolitan area which I wasn't able to do so before. Signal reports received were 5-9 loud and clear. Would recommend.
Lawrence A Rizio
Reviewed in the United States on September 19, 2024
This is a great buy for the money and the reception it gives back. Fast shipping and in great shape upon arrival. Easy to use and setup is a breeze. I am enjoying using it, makes my trips joyful on both the HT and mobile radios I have. I'm glad I bought it. Hope to get a lot of use out of it.
Dan
Reviewed in the United States on August 9, 2024
Great stationary setup but has high increase of static while in motion.Antenna receives and transmits wonderfully on 2m 70cm and GMRS when placed on roof of pickup truck and parked, but anything above 5-10mph causes static noise and loss of signal TX to repeater or base station.(Tested for rpm/line noise and that’s not the issue, there’s no spring on the mount so it’s possibly a flaw in the grounding design)
Ryan S
Reviewed in the United States on February 13, 2024
The SWR is acceptable on 2M, 70cm, and GMRS. Like other reviewers have mentioned, shortening the antenna a little will help. But if you cut the tip off, then it will be sharp and dangerous. So not a good solution. My whip was bent a little, as you can see. The coax is thicker than I expected, which is good for loss (has less loss) but is also less flexible than some other antennas.
Geotechcritter
Reviewed in the United States on November 6, 2024
The antenna seems to be decent quality and works fine, just be aware that if you are planning on using it for a mobile with an SO239, you'll need to order an SMA to PL-259 adapter. Not a big deal, but just realize what you are getting. Otherwise, like me, you end up with an antenna and realize that you won't be able to use it until you order the adapters and wait on them too.
Customer
Reviewed in the United States on January 31, 2024
I am using this antenna for the 144/440Mhz ham bands. The antenna is well constructed. The coax cable appears to be a solid center wired which tends not to bend as easily. I prefer a stranded wire center connector for more flexibility and greater life. I tested the SWR (see images) and they were acceptable. However, in my case, I removed 6 mm from the end and the SWR is now a bit better for both 144/440 bands (see images). The magnetic for the base is strong and I don't see any holding issues. I tested mounting the antenna at the center of the roof vs the corners and did see differences in the SWR measurements, but this was expected and was not enough for concern. The SMA connector is a bit of an odd ball, but was perfect for the radio I am using.
Glen Howard
Reviewed in Canada on January 18, 2024
The quality of manufacturing is impressive. Works great so far, particularly in the middle of a freezing Canadian winter in January. An incredible strong magnetic mount is probably it's best feature.Very pleased with this purchase.
paul moll
Reviewed in the United States on December 20, 2023
I bought this antenna primarily on reviews that said it was more tuned to GMRS than the 440 ham band. I wanted a dual band: 2m ham and GMRS. That combination does not seem to be intentionally made anywhere. So I gave this one a go. Here are my findings:Let's start with what this antenna is: on 2m it's a 1/4 wave mag mount (ground plane). The coil in the center is a bit of inductance so shortens the tuned whip for 2m. Fine. It's 1/2 over 1/4 wave for a 450 band. This a very common configuration because it works well as dual band. Being an antenna designer I can say with certainty that getting "higher" gain in a mere whip is difficult and bandwidth will suffer badly if you try. So just take this antenna for what it is and move on IMHO.Yes, it was tuned quite well to 2m ham band, no problem there.For GMRS it was tuned a bit low, probably around 455 or so. I don't have a VNA so can't tell exactly, I just have a decent VSWR meter.After a bit of thinking about the combination of 2m & 450 ish, I concluded that it needed the top of the whip trimmed by 3/8 inch. So I did just that, trimmed by 3/8 inch. VSWR at end of cable went from 1.8 ish at GMRS to 1.5 ish. I then trimmed another 1/8 inch and bingo it's down to 1.3 ish. Done.A word about how to mount this antenna: As is true with any ground plane antenna the ground plane details are super important. It's rare that there is a location on a vehicle where the metal body/ground extends in all directions by AT LEAST 1/4 wavelength. Thus many times the best location for a sedan is the center of the roof, or even the center of the trunk is just as good. But I have a pickup truck with huge sun roof. So....I made a home made metal plate on the edge of the bed rail that is well connected to the bed rail and the aluminum tonneau cover. Not ideal, but as much metal as I could get for the ground plane. This is the condition that the antenna was tuned for as above.The next thing I did was to try it out on the roof in the best location that I could get. And sure enough, VSWR is different. But in a good way. On the roof it's now 1.1 or so on both 2m and GMRS. Back to the bed rail location it's 1.0 dead on for 2m and 1.3 ish for GMRS. Keep in mind these are all at the connector end of the 10ft RG58 cable, so about 2dB (round trip cable loss) worse at the antenna. But anything better than 2:1 VSWR is just fine in reality.I should add that this having a female SMA connector is a bit odd, but getting it to male SMA is just one adapter away. Also, please note that there is a power limit on SMA connectors,...don't know that that is off the top of my head but some 60, 70 watt mobiles might exceed that limit. I'd stay with just 25 watts or less if it were me :)Hope this all helps :)
Jon Preston
Reviewed in the United States on November 1, 2023
UPDATE: I've road tested this and it works great!! So far it holds up to speeds above 70mph. Works good for my HT radio within a 40 mile radius of any repeater. We'll see how the magnet holds up when it gets below 0.Great little antenna that you can easily take down or remove the radial when not using. The magnet is stronger then I thought it would be although I haven't road tested it yet. I've had other antennas in the past but this one seems to be much hardier for the size. It's dual band (2M and 70cm) so it should work well hitting local repeaters and even simplex frequencies. Great value for the price!
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