UHF Antenna on a VHF Radio

[motofreak008]

I have been working at the local police dept as a dispatcher for about three weeks now. Part of my training requires me to take a ride along with a patrol officer of X district to see the major addresses of that district. Yesterday I went on one of my ride alongs and noticed on one of the calls that I went on that one of the officers was using a HT1250 with a UHF antenna. Doesn't seem like it would be bad, but the radio is a VHF radio. I am pretty sure I remember that you can't interchange antennas like that. Couldn't that screw up the transmitter?

[wx4cbh]

Yep, the wrong antenna definitely poses a hazard to the welfare of the PA section of the transmitter. Could it have been one of the stubby VHF antennas? They're really hard to distinguish from the UHF version sometimes and I always have to look and make sure they're marked as a VHF instead of UHF.

[motofreak008]

That's what I thought, but no, it is the whip style. So it was pretty easy to distinguish the difference.

[WB6DGN]

Is it possible that that officer bought an aftermarket VHF whip for his radio? I don't believe that it would hurt the transmitter because, among other protections, power folds back with high VSWR but the range would be terrible. Has he complained about range or noisy reception when other radios are receiving a good signal? They can even be keyed with NO antenna (don't tempt fate) and it doesn't hurt them (i know, I've done it accidentally) so, I think, the main issue would be VERY poor performance.
Tom

[AEC]

Circle-M, in their infinite wisdom, have marked the odd-looking antennas with the bandsplit, near the base.

The screw base is the same thread type as those found on the Genesis, P110/GP300, Saber Etc...

Only the style has been changed to reflect some techno/euro styling.

The wideband version looks identical, but does not have bold embossed lettering stating VHF or UHF at the base.

The standard black dot version does though.

The darn things look like some sort of cheap marital aid to me no matter what.

[motofreak008]

Here is a link to the antenna on the radio.
http://www.motorola.com/business/US-EN/ ... 06b00aRCRD

[Will]

The darn things look like some sort of cheap marital aid to me no matter what.

Agreed.. cheep Chinese stuff.....

Beware the tapered VHF antennas do not work well and in some cases they were recalled by Motorola and replaced with P50/GP300 style.