EM Wave 1/4 wave VHF on UHF

[N5AFD]

I know the cheap button mount VHF 1/4 wave are acceptable half waves on UHF. Do you think this one would also be usable on UHF? Unfortunately I don’t have a meter handy to do any testing.

Picture isn’t attaching but it’s a EM Wave EMFLX-M10008-WB tuned to 144-174

Thanks

 

[prcguy]

They would be a 3/4 wave on UHF and if the tuned VHF freq Is harmonically related to your UHF freqs it will probably have a useable VSWR. On UHF most of your signal could be pointed above the horizon with a loss of gain at the horizon.

 

[mmckenna]

I've got the non-WB version and it's tuned for some work stuff (156MHz). As PRC guy said, they launch RF up above the horizon on UHF, but that worked fine for me living out in the hills. Would be ideal in Dallas, but it's not going to hurt your radio.

If you are just looking at the SWR plot, here's the VHF side:

Here's what it looks like on UHF:

 

[prcguy]

I've got the non-WB version and it's tuned for some work stuff (156MHz). As PRC guy said, they launch RF up above the horizon on UHF, but that worked fine for me living out in the hills. Would be ideal in Dallas, but it's not going to hurt your radio.

If you are just looking at the SWR plot, here's the VHF side:

Here's what it looks like on UHF:

“Would be ideal in Dallas”? I’m in the DFW area right now and Dallas is fairly flat, did you mean “not ideal for Dallas?“

 

[mmckenna]

“Would be ideal in Dallas”? I’m in the DFW area right now and Dallas is fairly flat, did you mean “not ideal for Dallas?“

Typo, should have writtedn "not ideal in Dallas". I used to be able to type fast and catch my errors. Now It's just one or the other….

 

[prcguy]

Typo, should have writtedn "not ideal in Dallas". I used to be able to type fast and catch my errors. Now It's just one or the other….

Oh auto spell will fix it for ya. I once had a Catholic Church customer with the last name of Lucier and autospell would always change it to Lucifer. I think more than one correspondence went out before I caught it.

 

[N5AFD]

Lots of good info. Thank y’all very much.

I was just curious as I have a VHF only radio on its own antenna and was planning on a UHF only radio/antenna combo but decided to just toss in my dual band Kenwood but don’t like ham specific antennas so thought I could use the same VHF with it. I’ll do some testing but likely will just stick with a true UHF antenna. I’m on 440 most of the time anyway.

Merry Christmas everyone!

 

[prcguy]

If you have an NMO mount already you can always swap antennas for a nice dual band in the future.

 

[mmckenna]

There are some good dual/multi band antennas out there on the LMR side that work well. Bandwidth on them is sufficient for most applications, including amateur.

 

[devicelab]

I use this one right now on VHF HAM: EM Wave EM-MFLX132-FT

It works quite well and is easily tunable:

EM Wave EM-MFLX132-FT Ultra-Flexible X-Nut® 132-1000 MHz - Field Tunable

EM Wave EM-MFLX132-FT Ultra-Flexible X-Nut® 132-1000 MHz - Field Tunable

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