Frdbronco8

Listening to some simplex traffic (TX frequency of local repeater with nearby people) and it's hard to say if it recieves any differently. Maybe only a touch better than my HT that I'm holding (hoped it would be way better than my ht). Did a quick test with a ht in the car and it seemed to TX a little stronger to a couple spots I have tried before but not a big difference. Will have to try with a couple people later on that I know we're just out of my reach. I wonder if the 712 would be much different?

Well I went and ordered one. Getting it outside on the roof is going to be a bigger project than I expected so I threw it in the attic for now. Will see if it makes a difference compared to my little 2.5db antenna I had. Swr is 1.75. Dropped to 1.4ish when I held it down in the house below the attic so I'm guessing being so close to the roofing is raising the swr a little but not enough to be too worried about. Funny thing is my Ed fong antenna was a 1.05 but didn't seem to work any better (or maybe a little worde) than the cheapo amazon antenna I was running.

I was eyeballing that one too but there were just enough questionable reviews to make me pause. This Comet is about the same price and a nice size but I don't want to keep buying antennas with little to no improvement.

I see this for about $100 and 42 inches long but I can't find much info about it online. Perhaps it's newish? Everyone seems to really like the Comet 712efc but its 10ft tall. I was wondering how this would compare as I would like something that doesn't stick up quiet so high. Also a few bucks cheaper. I'm running a 25watt mobile and currently have a small antenna in the attic. Figure if I'm going to go through the trouble of mounting something on the roof I'd like to upgrade the antenna at the same time. Thanks! Andy

Curious what you ended up doing. I was just programing one for a friend and noticed the same thing. I did a radio check on a somewhat distant repeater and recieved a reply that I could hear on my nearby handheld. The reply said I sounded very clear on the ra86 but I couldn't hear the response on the ra86, only occasional static.

Thank you! I've been trying to program GMRS and some others after the "unlock" but it wasn't working. This made it so I was finally able to. I really like this radio (mines the DB20g) for the size and price and even for the controls on it but the programming via computer was driving me nuts.

Thanks for the thorough review. I would love to see someone with your knowledge and equipment compare this $25 amazon antenna to the Ed Fong as well. I put up an Ed Fong (GMRS) and was having some issues so I ordered one of these to help trouble shoot. My problem ended up being a connection not related to the antenna but I did back to back comparisons from a mobile unit at my house (antenna in the attic) between the two antennas and the Amazon antenna seemed to work better on simplex talking to a HT a few miles away. Both work fine on my local repeater. Might be due to the lower gain in my hilly tree filled area? Curious if anyone else had tried it. https://www.amazon.com/Fiberglass-400-470mhz-Connector-Repeater-Transceiver/dp/B08TWN78MM/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?crid=2KCREX3K8TGKZ&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.UdX0qOdqj1XnPHqy7flXAdCzfdv7AzdHKB-cPWlByVWWCE_awFMGgJmN-hZRq758_LGcdK9QM13Ldl404Q_e18KSRZ9JDdss5jnwBUhTNMsMiYn51h7D3-lvevl8vvVSxwt1SPFX7Q_n7eCLKcIjfosSZLiuqditX53kmVCf1hYhlMyQ9Il6pVDBojVYjTWHi94J6AIsWZKO7rRPSSj5xkydlxUMZhLqC4p9mHFhZB8.MSAUAn6Lt8yY_AbuYJyv56SvHPfuGgrnyoLxuZV0XyU&dib_tag=se&keywords=gmrs+antenna&qid=1735455855&sprefix=gmrs+ante%2Caps%2C212&sr=8-1-spons&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9hdGY&psc=1

I tried this and it wouldnt let me write a new program to the radio with gmrs channels. Aaid something about outside of frequency. Also showed these two channels when i read from radio. I was able to manual dial in a gmrs freq and transmit on it. Would love to have my gmrs programmed and have the ability to TX on a vfo frequency in an emergency if needed.

For clarification, if you "unlock" this can you still TX on the GMRS channels or do you have to change it back to GMRS?