Ham radio antennas for GMRS?

[WSEF362]

I have ham and GMRS radios and wondering what other ham antennas folks have found to work with acceptable results for GMRS.

Today I checked my comet GP-9 with my nano VNA and found SWR to be less than 2:1 across the GMRS band. 

Tomorrow I will test my mobile antenna because inquiring minds need to know.
 

[TNFrank]

The little Nagoya 701g is actually pretty decent. I was hitting a Repeater around 11 miles away with it on my KG-805g. 

[nokones]

I can sit in my living room with a Motorola XTS5000 using a stock Motorola Flex-Whip antenna and clearly hit a repeater and communicate 60 miles away.  My point is, the antenna being used on a portable radio does not mean anything. Any antenna with the proper operating band range that will screw onto the radio will do the same job.

It all depends on the location and elevation of the repeater station and if there is a line-of-sight between the two points. Even a cheap POS Pandaland antenna will do the same job.

[WRUE951]

On 12/3/2025 at 5:30 AM, nokones said:

I can sit in my living room with a Motorola XTS5000 using a stock Motorola Flex-Whip antenna and clearly hit a repeater and communicate 60 miles away.  My point is, the antenna being used on a portable radio does not mean anything. Any antenna with the proper operating band range that will screw onto the radio will do the same job.

It all depends on the location and elevation of the repeater station and if there is a line-of-sight between the two points. Even a cheap POS Pandaland antenna will do the same job.

I can hit the El Paso (Mojave Desert)  Repeaters from Acton with a Baofang..  That's probably 70 miles line of site.  Acton sits at 2,500', El Paso 4,200' nothing but crystal clear desert floor in between.   

[WRTC928]

In my experience, more often than not, a 70cm antenna or 2m/70cm antenna which has a good SWR on 70cm will also have an acceptable SWR on GMRS. I consider anything below 2.0:1 to be acceptable. Similarly, if I get a good signal on 70cm, I'll also have a good signal on GMRS. I don't use a GMRS-specific antenna on either of my vehicles.