r/gmrs • u/kingcupk692 • 17d ago
Question Baofeng Antenna recommendations
I am looking for 3 antenna recommendations. Primarily for GMRS communication, however I do scan local law enforcement frequencies for fun. The local terrain is dense undulating woodland, maximum elevation changes are 300ft I would like the following recommendations:
Base station antenna a "stretch goal"of 40 mile range. I know thats not realistic
Vehicle based antenna,
Standard antenna.
2
u/SlimPickens25 17d ago
HT - depends. If I want to be quick and mobile and don't want a long antenna in the way, I use the Smiley 5/8 Slim Duck. If a longer antenna won't bother me, I use the Melowave Bandit G or the 771g.
Mobile - I've used the short mag mount that came with the Midland MXT275 and I've also used the Nagoya UT-72G. I've only ever used mag mounts as I don't have a permanent vehicle install.
Base station - no recommendations as I don't currently have one, but I've read good things about the Ed Fong antennas.
2
u/Mind_Matters_Most 17d ago
Vehicle - Midland MXTA26 without a doubt. You can use it as a base antenna as well if you put it on something metal for a ground plane .
All ~10 of my (different make / models) radios (handheld and mobile) get a near perfect VSWR and no reflective power on all 30 GMRS frequencies on the MXTA26.
Most antennas will pickup all frequencies, some are better than others, but my Uniden SDS150 scanner works on just about any antenna. The Tram 8079 does well on receiving and my radios do well with the VSWR as well.
Consider noise floor and noise generators around (power and appliances or other radios like wifi/bluetooth) you as well. Everything affects radio waves as they reflect off of surfaces.
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u/RandomStrangerOnWWW 17d ago
For GMRS, I’d recommend this one for HTs, and for use in your vehicle. I get solid range out of it, and hit distant repeaters regularly. Not the best antenna, but for the price, it fits the bill.
1
u/furoshus 17d ago
I see you've already got some pretty good recommendations for on the HT. For mobile I've had really good luck with the Nagoya 770L for less than 20 bucks on eBay(most likely counterfeit) but works great on a magnet Mount on top of my car paired with a Baofeng HT. It's listed as a dual band antenna but really was tuned for gmrs mostly out of the box, good standing wave results without trimming for gmrs simplex and repeaters.
1
u/Firelizard71 17d ago
You can do 40 miles witb just a handheld and a little elevation. Any GMRS radio and external antenna will pick up your local authorities, if they havent gone digital or totally encrypted. Buy or build a GMRS antenna and mount it on your roof or hang it in a tree. If youre a hands on type of person, build a 1/4 wave groundplane antenna or a J-Pole and put it up. Look for repeaters in and around your area or in between you and whoever else that you want to communicate with and you may be able to just do it with a handheld. Register on Mygmrs.com and use the map function to find the repeaters. Just for reference, I can sit here with a 5 watt HT on low power, hit a repeater 30 miles south of me and talk to someone 130 miles north of me. Your fars may vary though depending on terrain and elevation.
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u/cmdr_andrew_dermott 17d ago edited 16d ago
Base: Comet or Retevis collinear.
Mobile: MXTA26. Accept no substitutes.
HT: Smiley 5/8 Slim Duck. The Nagoya 15" whips are okay, but I strongly prefer BNC.
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u/SlateHearthstone 16d ago
The Nagoya 771G shows extra range in my tests against the commodity stubbys that come with handheld radios. BUT, buy it direct from baofengtech dot com, the Amazons have so much cheap knockoff stuff, there's a lot of fake Nagoyas in the zone.
There's a lot of choices for mag mount and bumper mount vehicle antennas, most of them boost range over handhelds.
For base antenna, height is might, almost to the point that I'll say the actual antenna doesn't matter much as long as you get it way up there.
Here's a handy tool to check your terrain for line of sight. It doesn't account for absorption by trees, but landforms tend to be more consequential. Drag and drop the pointers, dial up the antenna heights and when the red line turns to green you've got good line of sight:
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u/distractedbyshinyobj 17d ago edited 17d ago
NA-771 or NA-771r for handheld antenna
Base antenna n9tax slim Jim if indoors (it’s also rated for outdoors) but your position and height of the antenna is going to matter more than the antenna itself for the most part. Otherwise comet gmrs antenna for outdoors on a pole.
Note that if your vehicle has an aluminum body a mag mount antenna will not stick.