Yaesu VX 8r Secondary Antenna Alternative

waveone · Oct 20, 2014

It would be helpful to have alternatives to the stock antenna which came on my HH Yaesu vx 8r antenna. It is horrible but I cannot seem to locate a decent 1/4 wave, triple band antenna that is flexible due to the SMA type connection.

does anyone have a suggestion or perhaps experience on this sott of thing?

gewecke · Oct 20, 2014

waveone said:
It would be helpful to have alternatives to the stock antenna which came on my HH Yaesu vx 8r antenna. It is horrible but I cannot seem to locate a decent 1/4 wave, triple band antenna that is flexible due to the SMA type connection.

does anyone have a suggestion or perhaps experience on this sott of thing?

Have you really looked?
Google Comet antennas or Diamond. They make several high performance antennas which can out perform the stock antenna. Maldol is another brand, which I favor.

73,
n9zas

waveone · Oct 21, 2014

gewecke said:
Have you really looked?
Google Comet antennas or Diamond. They make several high performance antennas which can out perform the stock antenna. Maldol is another brand, which I favor.

73,
n9zas

Yes, I've really looked in addition to researched responses here. There are not that many favorable reviews of any including Diamond. The impression I get is that no antenna except the stock one adequately utilizes all frequencies and are cumbersome among others things. That is why I have asked the question here.

kayn1n32008 · Oct 21, 2014

waveone said:
It would be helpful to have alternatives to the stock antenna which came on my HH Yaesu vx 8r antenna. It is horrible but I cannot seem to locate a decent 1/4 wave, triple band antenna that is flexible due to the SMA type connection.

does anyone have a suggestion or perhaps experience on this sott of thing?

I doubt you will find an antenna that will perform well on all three bands. I would concentrate on finding an antenna that works well on 144/440, and forgo 50MHz. The problem with 50MHz is that even 1/4wave on 50MHzis on the order of 1.25m long... Almost 4feet... A decent portable antenna is just not all that efficient.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

waveone · Oct 21, 2014

kayn1n32008 said:
I doubt you will find an antenna that will perform well on all three bands. I would concentrate on finding an antenna that works well on 144/440, and forgo 50MHz. The problem with 50MHz is that even 1/4wave on 50MHzis on the order of 1.25m long... Almost 4feet... A decent portable antenna is just not all that efficient.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Thank you, very much. In an economy of words you summed up the information I was looking for. so given that fact, it appears that perhaps one of the Diamond versions might be the best alternative I suppose. Although I have no real knowledge of this one way or the other.

waveone · Oct 21, 2014

kayn1n32008 said:
I doubt you will find an antenna that will perform well on all three bands. I would concentrate on finding an antenna that works well on 144/440, and forgo 50MHz. The problem with 50MHz is that even 1/4wave on 50MHzis on the order of 1.25m long... Almost 4feet... A decent portable antenna is just not all that efficient.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

On that order, is there another type of antenna more efficiently suited to an HT other than a 1/4 wave?

Also , is there a chart of some sort wherein I can source the hz to meter conversions? What I mean by that is when Hz and Meters are discussed I become lost. for example 2m vs 144mhz

AK9R · Oct 21, 2014

The relationship between frequency and wavelength of a radio wave is generally represented as:

Frequency = Speed of Light / Wavelength or Wavelength = Speed of Light / Frequency

So, if you assume Wavelength in meters, Frequency in Hz, and Speed of Light as 300 million meters/second, then the formula is:

Frequency = 300 million / Wavelength or Wavelength = 300 million / Frequency

If you adjust the units so that Frequency is in MHz, then the Speed of Light factor is 300 mega meters/second. So, as an example, let's consider 146 MHz:

Wavelength = 300 mega meters/second / 146 mega Hz = 2.05 which rounds off to 2 meters.

waveone · Oct 21, 2014

W9BU said:
The relationship between frequency and wavelength of a radio wave is generally represented as:

Frequency = Speed of Light / Wavelength

or

Wavelength = Speed of Light / Frequency

So, if you assume Wavelength in meters, Frequency in MHz, and Speed of Light as 300 meters/second, then the formula is:

Frequency = 300 / Wavelength

or

Wavelength = 300 / Frequency

As an example, let's consider 146 MHz:

Wavelength = 300 / 146 = 2.05 which rounds off to 2 meters.

Thank you , thank you. That is simple enough and clears up a ton.

eorange · Oct 21, 2014

I have the VX-8R, and I use the Diamond SRH77-CA. It works great on 2m and 440 for transmit.

I think I hit a 220 repeater once, but I don't do that really at all. As you know, the 220 output on the VX-8R is low so nothing will help much there.

It also does great on APRS, both transmit and receive. In general, no complaints for what it is.

WQPW689 · Oct 21, 2014

Antenna

I don't have the VX-8R, but the VX-6R. I use Diamond's SRH-320A, which is SMA and it gives good performance, including 1.25 meters. At least I've hit some nearby 220 repeaters, so...

Seems there really isn't too much you can do about 6 meters with portable multi-band antennae.

prcguy · Oct 21, 2014

Ive had both the VX7 and VX8 and had a Maldol telescoping center loaded whip that covered 6m, 2m and 440. It was about 3 1/2 ft tall and worked really well on all three bands. I could hit a few 6m repeaters about 50mi away and made a 100+ mi 6m simplex contact from a 550ft hill using a speaker mic as a counterpoise. The speaker mic with cord stretched out made a noticeable improvement on 6m.

Otherwise I found the stock antenna to work quite well on 2m, 220 and 440. I also have. a Jetstream whip about 16" long that gives a slight improvement on 2m and 220 but its hard to notice without a field strength meter. Unless you go very big I don't think you'll find an antenna that will give any drastic improvement over the stock whip.
prcguy

ewetstone · Oct 21, 2014

I found this which might help with showing the conversions:

http://www.arrl.org/files/file/Regulatory/Band Chart/Hambands_grayscale.pdf

waveone · Oct 21, 2014

prcguy said:
Ive had both the VX7 and VX8 and had a Maldol telescoping center loaded whip that covered 6m, 2m and 440. It was about 3 1/2 ft tall and worked really well on all three bands. I could hit a few 6m repeaters about 50mi away and made a 100+ mi 6m simplex contact from a 550ft hill using a speaker mic as a counterpoise. The speaker mic with cord stretched out made a noticeable improvement on 6m.

Otherwise I found the stock antenna to work quite well on 2m, 220 and 440. I also have. a Jetstream whip about 16" long that gives a slight improvement on 2m and 220 but its hard to notice without a field strength meter. Unless you go very big I don't think you'll find an antenna that will give any drastic improvement over the stock whip.
prcguy

Thank you all gentlemen(I assume all are men).

In regard to your post above, am I to understand that the stock rubber duck antenna functioned well for you on those frequencies? Mine on the VX 8r is horrible- significant static.

I've heard mention of the Maldol as a good alternative and frankly mixed reviews about the SRH 940 999 740 and so on. All of them seem to range from 14" -19" or so inches but not the 3 1/2 feet you are speaking of.

It would seem that anything would do better than the stock antenna , but I am a novice at this .

unclechanblake · Oct 26, 2014

I have an ft-60r and a vx6r. I didn't like the antennas that came stock. I replaced the vx6r with a Diamond SRH320. The ft-60r is more of a base antenna to me so I attached it differently. It is attached to a slim Jim about 25' feet up. See pics.

The first pic is from the inside of the house. FT-60r is attached to a ht saver cable through a pass through terminal in a PVC board.

Second pic is the cable on the outside. It goes up a series of military fiberglass poles to the Slim Jim.

Works well.

KF7HCZ

unclechanblake · Oct 26, 2014

Slim Jim Pic

Here's the final pic of the Slim Jim on the military poiles. This is the roll-up version of the Slim Jim/J-Pole.

KF7HCZ

Yaesu VX 8r Secondary Antenna Alternative

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