VHF antenna for G5?

[sparklehorse]

Hello,
My G5 seems to be quite sensitive on VHF frequencies with just the stubby stock antenna. I wanted to see what it could do with a proper VHF whip attached, so I used an SMA female-female adapter to connect a male SMA 18" whip to the radio. The RF connection with the whip was good, as I get about 1 bar on my local 700 MHz P25 system with no antenna, but after attaching the whip the system went right back up to 4 bars. Oddly though, there was no apparent change on my VHF channels with the whip. The signal strength on VHF signals was virtually no different with the whip vs. the stock stubby. In fact, the VHF signal strength remains the same without any antenna at all. So it seems the radio must be using an internal antenna for VHF. But I see there is an accessory charger available that allows connection of an external BNC antenna. Can anyone confirm if that charger with its antenna affects VHF signals? How is the RF fed into the radio? I'm guessing one or two of the ten pin on the bottom? Has anyone connected an external antenna for VHF using the pin(s) instead of the accessory charger?

Thanks for the help!

Gordon
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[Thunderknight]

I believe it was confirmed that the VHF (or UHF, for that model) uses an internal antenna.
I remember someone else asking about the charger antenna too, but I don't recall if there was an answer.

 

[cpetraglia]

And that's what is stopping my purchase of a G5. It makes no sense to have a VHF internal antenna when that requires the longest antenna of all three offered bands. I can verify the Base/Charger antenna jack works fine for my G4. You would need a confirmation from Unication that it would work for VHF on a G5. My guess is NO. There would have to be a switch and we know there are two dedicated receivers in the G5.

 

[phirephoto]

And that's what is stopping my purchase of a G5. It makes no sense to have a VHF internal antenna when that requires the longest antenna of all three offered bands. I can verify the Base/Charger antenna jack works fine for my G4. You would need a confirmation from Unication that it would work for VHF on a G5. My guess is NO. There would have to be a switch and we know there are two dedicated receivers in the G5.

They've confirmed it doesn't work.

But I've found reception on the G5 on VHF to be awesome.

 

[Thunderknight]

It makes no sense to have a VHF internal antenna when that requires the longest antenna of all three offered bands.

It's always been internal on Minitor pagers, even on low band. (yes, I know there was a charger with antenna but I'm talking about the plain pager).
Remember, this is a pager first and VHF paging is often designed with many transmitters and/or higher ERP to get in building on hip coverage.

 

[APX8000]

Correct...external is 7/800, internal is a loop antenna either on VHF or UHF depending on the model. I will say that I had no issues picking up a countywide UHF trunked system with the internal loop with zero issues.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[sparklehorse]

Thanks for the replies everyone. My Google-foo failed me on this antenna question, as I see now it was answered on page 33 of the 42 page G4/G5 thread. Guess I should have finished reading that thread first, there is a lot of good info in there!

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[Vermonster]

No external VFH a deal killer

Just adding my voice that at least in northern NH (and to a lesser extent over the border on the Maine MSCOMMNET system) the lack of an external VHF antenna is problematic.

On the NH state P25 system handheld Moto radios are reliable in many--but not all--areas, but go deaf once inside vehicle. While I have not had a chance to test a G5, I would expect the same issue.

A drop in cradle in the truck with external VHF antenna would be helpful, especially for seasonal workers and others who use vehicles without permanently mounted radios.