Batboard

Does Moto make a VHF whip style antenna for the XTS radios ? One of the sellers on that auction site has one listed but no part # it looks like an 800mhz to me. I don't see one listed in the BSM. I use a wide band antenna now but it gets caught on everything at work. Whats the part # if they do make one and does it degrade the RX/TX ?

I use a Visar antenna it seems to to work well for my everyday use. I am mostly in the 153-156 range.

I need 150-162 coverage.

SD70MAC wrote:I need 150-162 coverage.

Moto part 8505834W02, Helical Antenna, 150.8-178 MHz, 5". This is the whip style Visar antenna, works fine on the XTS..


-Marc

If you don't use the "Biggie" center-fed antenna then the Visar is the way to go. I have encountered a LOT of
users who swear by the Visar unit.

They really do perform well, and they are nice and low profile. I've noticed little to no difference in RX/TX "for the most part" when compared to the standard length arm-pit scratcher vhf antenna..

-Marc

Living in mountain terrain, and poor signal areas more times than not, I found the Visar antenna to be a poor antenna for areas such as I deal with.

City use probably fares far better with sites within a smaller geographical radius to a main site, so signal density is far better as well.
Taking building reflections/refractions into play, then I suspect the Visar style antenna would suffice.

Even in an urban area, such an antenna would be better as the signals are often above you, not 50 miles away, so the closer to a 1/4 wave, the better for you.

The wide band VHF antennas I use are: 85-05518V01

Sure, these are long antennas, but they do work well, and being wideband, allow use above and below the 150-162 range.

I receive Tucson weather on my XTS from Globe, also hear Phoenix weather in certain locations on my way to Pinal Peak.

With the Visar antenna, the radio is deaf, can't hear Tucson weather and forget Phoenix all together.

For our use, the Visar antennas are worthless, but that's just my penny's worth of input of course.

Visar style for me as well. I did informal testing a few years back and did find a measureable difference . Did about 10 locations switching back and forth antennas and getting the base station 'S' meter readings from the dispatcher, small differences and Visar type was suitable for our high density application but I could see on the fringe of the system that little bit made the difference between getting in (barely) vs. not at all. Solved our problem as some of our users were bending the whips into an inverted U, destroying reception and antenna's, prpbably not much good for the fragile radio connector either.