Astro Saber antenna with gain?

[Astrogoth]

I have a UHF high band Astro that I want to tweak. To get the best reception I thought I'd
first put on an antenna with a few db of gain. Couldn't find one for UHF with that rare mini-UHF
connector. So I got a BNC adaptor off eBay. Now I can't find a 450-512 BNC HT antenna.


I know I'm not the first to try this. What have you guys done in this department?


Thanks

MD

[Astrogoth]

82 people have read this and not one has even heard of a better UHF antenna?

[FireCpt809]

Not really? The OEM Whip is about the best. Larsen or Centurian are just as good or not better. Due to the size and portablity issues that is about it. Unless you want to mount a BNC antenna on a Pith helmet like at a hamfest.

[Astrogoth]

Not really? The OEM Whip is about the best. Larsen or Centurian are just as good or not better. Due to the size and portablity issues that is about it. Unless you want to mount a BNC antenna on a Pith helmet like at a hamfest.

Cap' you can blast me with an inch and a half line if I ever sink that low. Hams! (Shudder)

I am willing to trade *some* added height for some gain (or less loss). Motherola makes several kinds of VHF
HT antennas. Even a cool wideband one. But just one UHF. Oh well.

Thanks for the reply.

KC6UBM
Matthew D.

[Tom in D.C.]

First of all, the Astro Saber uses an SF antenna connector, not a mini-UHF. The mini-UHF
is the one used on Motorola mobile radios, or most of them.

The UHF quarter wave is about six inches, so a half-wave is about 12 inches, which
gets pretty big for sitting on top of an HT, longer even than the Motorola high performance
VHF SF antenna. The UHF HT antennas are not coiled, unlike the VHF antennas, so you're
talking about a better antenna in UHF than in VHF basically.

Which is probably why 82 people looked at your post and didn't reply. With a six-inch UHF
antenna you've got a quarter-wave, which in most cases is more than enough to get into
your local repeater or reach a nearby HT. All portable antennas are a compromise of one
sort or another, starting with the fact that they don't have a decent ground plane if they're
quarter wave. You might find a center fed halfwave UHF HT antenna from one of the manufacturers like Radiall-Larsen or Centurion but, again, it would be on the order of 12 inches tall which many would feel is just too much metal whipping around to be easily handled.

As for availability, you will certainly find what you need in the Tessco catalog. They seem to
have everything for every band with every type of fitting made.

[rc50won]

I keep a couple of Comet SMA24 whips around the shack and have found, with a small barrel adapter, they work well on my XTS's and Yaesu VX7. There is a noticeable gain difference to the duck. Yes this is a flexible 17" whip but it does do the "job".

http://www.universal-radio.com/CATALOG/ ... /3937.html

http://www.durhamradio.com/sma24-dual-b ... tenna.html


Marshall

[Astrogoth]

Thanks Marshall. There's a swapmeet this Saturday. I'll keep my eyes open for that Comet model.