1.25 meter mobile antenna?

[K9KLC]

Unfortunately, that antenna apparently doesn't come with an NMO mount. The CB-to-NMO adapter is very strong, though. I just generally try to avoid adapters, but sometimes it's what you have to do.

Ya, it was just a recommendation, while I don't use adaptors at the antenna, I have a fair amount of them in use inside, to adapt the Motorola mini UHF stuff to N connectors. I didn't want to mess with putting a Mini UHF on LMR 400 and 600 it was easier to use adaptors. I did look and a couple of those look pretty stout for what you're talking about. Again, "if it works it works".

 

[OkieBoyKJ5JFG]

Most anything is preferable out of the vehicle to an antenna inside the vehicle in most cases.

That's kinda what I'm trying to accomplish. My HT does ~6 watts on 220, which should be enough to visit various repeaters during my travels if I can effectively get the RF energy outside the Faraday cage, aka vehicle.

 

[KC3ECJ]

I'm looking for an antenna for the 1.25m band to put on my truck. They don't seem to be very common. The one that keeps coming up is the Nagoya 320, and I bought one, but even with a really good ground plane, I can barely get an acceptable SWR and when I do, 70 centimeters goes stratospheric. I might not mind that too much if I could get good SWR/Smith chart readings and good performance, because I have another radio for 2m/70cm, but I want to put it on the rear of my truck bed and SWR on 1.25 won't come down below 2.1-2.5:1 in that location. I'd be fine with a monoband antenna if I could get good performance from it with minimal ground plane. It doesn't need to do any other bands; I want it to give my HT putting out 6-7 watts a little more legs. I don't care how tall it is because I already have two 63" antennas (2m/70cm/GMRS and CB) on other corners.

Can anyone recommend a 1.25m antenna?

Yes, I have done a search, but I haven't found many and the ones I found mostly don't have any significant reviews.

Some traditional whip antennas for a car's FM stereo might work.
1/4 wave for the FM broadcast band is around 5/8 for 1.25m.

The Japanese FM broadcast band is a bit lower in frequency.
If you get an antenna specific to there, you can have a longer element that can be trimmed if need be.

 

[vagrant]

Did you sweep the antenna with an analyzer, or just use/test it centered in the middle of the roof? Nothing wrong with the latter. I am just curious about others results and the numbers if available, especially if it differs from mine.

Oh wow, the price on those antennas jumped.

 

[OkieBoyKJ5JFG]

Did you sweep the antenna with an analyzer, or just use/test it centered in the middle of the roof? Nothing wrong with the latter. I am just curious about others results and the numbers if available, especially if it differs from mine.

Oh wow, the price on those antennas jumped.

If you're referring to the Nagoya 320, I did sweep it and after my initial post, I tried it again and by many tiny tweaks, I got it to the point that on 2 meters, it goes above 2.0:1 at about 447.000 and on 1.25 meters, it stays between 1.75:1 and and 2.0:1. I can live with that, but that's on the roof of the car where it has an excellent ground plane. I may use it there occasionally.

 

[vagrant]

Compactenna

 

[OkieBoyKJ5JFG]

Compactenna

I tried my dual-band Compactenna on the stake pocket mount in my truck and it didn't have an acceptable SWR on any band. Maybe I got one that was made on a Monday, or maybe you just got lucky. I like it a lot on the roof of my car where it has a good ground plane, but there was nowhere on the truck that it was happy.

 

[OkieBoyKJ5JFG]

I settled on a Comet 224 140/220/440 triband antenna and installed it today. On the passenger side, SWRs were high, almost off the chart. However, on the driver side, they were perfect -- below 1.5:1 on all three bands. Go figure. I swapped it from one side to the other several times and got the same results each time. Don't argue with success. It'll just live on the driver side. It should improve my ability to hit the almost-local 1.25 meter repeater.

 

[K9KLC]

I settled on a Comet 224 140/220/440 triband antenna and installed it today. On the passenger side, SWRs were high, almost off the chart. However, on the driver side, they were perfect -- below 1.5:1 on all three bands. Go figure. I swapped it from one side to the other several times and got the same results each time. Don't argue with success. It'll just live on the driver side. It should improve my ability to hit the almost-local 1.25 meter repeater.

Interesting about the SWR changing so much on different sides, I wonder if other antennas would exhibit the same behavior. Anyway let us know how it's working out for you. Good luck!

 

[OkieBoyKJ5JFG]

The Diamond SG9000 doesn't care at all which side it's on. It holds good SWRs and gets out good signals on 140, 440, and 460. SWR is a little high in the 151-155 range, but not so high I couldn't use it if I needed to. Not that it's likely to come up -- I've literally never keyed up on MURS in the last 15 years -- but I usually check it anyway.

A couple of other antennas have exhibited some "handedness", but not to the same extent as the SBB224. The Comet SBB7 seems to like the passenger side a little better, but it doesn't do very well on either side, probably due to the lack of an adequate ground plane. The Comet 2x4sr sucks in every band on the passenger side but only sucks in the 2 meter band on the driver side. Again, it's almost certainly a ground plane issue, because on the roof of my car, its SWRs are perfect on GMRS, MURS, 70cm, 2m, and even 1.25m. Yeah, 1.25m. Go figure. I haven't tried to use it on that band, but I probably will sometime just out of curiosity. I've tried a handful of other antennas, but the lack of ground plane made most of them non-viable on the back corner of the truck bed.