HYS Pre-Tuned Fiberglass Base Station Antenna for VHF/UHF 144/430MHz - 4.5dBi VHF & 7.2dBi UHF, SO239 Connector, 5.7ft Long, Weatherproof, for Ham Radio & Amateur Radio

It far exceeded my hopes. Easy to install, easy to break apart, and the reception is insane. I have whip antennas, folding18" and 42.5" Abree's, a slim jim, a ground plane, a through-glass antenna, and a ghost antenna (short magnetic one for top of vehicle), and if I could do it over again, I would have only gotten this one antenna ( well, I probably still would have gotten the through-glass antenna for in the car). Im on the second floor with a balcony, antenna clamped to the railing. I went from not being able to even kerchunk a repeater about 45-50 miles away, to reading 176/255 on signal, full conversations with just a tidradio 8 watt, and baofeng 8 watt HT's. I can't express enough how awesome this antenna is, and unscrew at the middle to fit in a backpack is perfect for hiking, camping and POTA, SOTA, etc. If you are wanting to enhance your experience with your ht, I highly recommend this antenna. You could get a new rig, or a 50 watt mobile, but why do that when the right antenna gives your HT the range of a mobile. Great, great, great. Also, just for context, I live in a densely forested valley of the PNW Cascades, and the repeaters im hitting are through the forest, and around numerous hills/mountains. Yes, it's more $, but it's the only one worth the price IMO.

Makes a very good base antenna

SWR has gone way up, took antenna down, no water in connections, piece of junk, get what you payed for!!! 😡

If you're looking for a dual-band antenna that is really designed for 146/445 MHz, this is not that.However, this antenna was advertised as a 144 MHz / 430 MHz dual-band antenna and it is more that.On 2 m, this antenna is resonant around or below 144 MHz, on 70 cm it's resonant around 425 MHz. I had hoped it would be suitable for 2 m APRS at 144.39 and 70 cm operation around 433 MHz. After measuring it, I find it to be no better (and maybe worse) than my current X30 dual-band.I set this antenna up on a pole at 10' / 3 m above the ground outdoors, away from nearby obstacles. Then measured the VSWR across each band.On 2 m, I measured the following:144.00 MHz - 1.3:1144.39 MHz - 1.4:1146.00 MHz - 1.9:1148.00 MHz - 2.0:1On 70 cm, I got the following:420.00 MHz - 2.0:1425.00 MHz - 1.6:1430.00 MHz - 1.7:1432.00 MHz - 1.9:1434.00 MHz - 2.1:1440.00 MHz - 2.5:1445.00 MHz - 2.5:1450.00 MHz - 2.7:1The antenna seems well built, pretty much uses the same base casting and mounting tube as other base antennas, the radials appear to be stainless steel, the vertical part is a two-piece unit with what seems to be a firm threaded connection (no tinkering with little set screws, just screw the two parts together, maybe use a little dielectric grease).For my application, it's not worth dropping the existing dual-band antenna and replacing it with this one. I will be returning it.

The antenna came well packaged and was easy to assemble as advertised. It's working great. I do not have an SWR meter to measure the impedance of my set up, however I am hitting repeaters 44 miles away with my Yaesu FTM-500 with 30 feet of RG58 coaxial cable running to the antenna. So far so good!

great antenna

The antenna was easy to assemble without instructions. Everything was in perfect condition and well packaged. My first transmissions using this antenna were received perfectly hitting a repeater 6 miles away.

Antenna was perfect but short on radials. Missing one