trickpony Posted February 14, 2021 Report Share Posted February 14, 2021 I have a small problem, I live in the middle of nowhere. The animas valley to be exact in a place called windmill. I have a Midland mxt115 with a 3db stubby antenna in my truck the problem is if I want to talk outside of the area I have to hope the weather is right in order to reach the repeater which is line of site 43 miles I know this is right because I have connected to the repeater "jack's peak" and talk to tucson and Abq. I want to set up a base station and be able to connect to the repeater to talk to other people without having to rely so much and the right weather conditions any Ideas as to the type of antenna i should get. and maybe a good suggestion on a radio. any help would be appreciated. thanks RickWRKB393 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
axorlov Posted February 14, 2021 Report Share Posted February 14, 2021 If you want to place stationary antenna at home, something like this should work (since you already confirmed you can connect with mag mount):https://www.ebay.com/itm/Browning-BR-6356-UHF-450-470-MHz-Yagi-Antenna-N-Female-100-watts/222872296126?hash=item33e4395abe:g:UOMAAOSwMEBaoG7e Actually, since you can connect with mag mount on the roof your truck, the simple unity gain antenna on the 10' - 20' mast above the roof of your house might be just fine. I used BR-6140 with great success:https://www.newegg.com/p/050-009P-00017?Description=BR-6140&cm_re=BR-6140-_-050-009P-00017-_-Product&quicklink=true Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gman1971 Posted February 16, 2021 Report Share Posted February 16, 2021 For house, I found the Laird FG4500 to be really really good. For the car, I found that an NMO was the way to go, so I removed the factory sharkfin/antenna and placed a GMRS antenna there. Performance went through the roof (no pun intended) with a 6 inch 1/4 wave. G. NCRick 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gortex2 Posted February 16, 2021 Report Share Posted February 16, 2021 If you using the MXTA25 antenna on your vehicle and having issues I'd recommend a standard UHF 1/4 wave as above. You will see a noticeable difference in both TX and RX. Those pepper shaker antennas are good for close by stuff but for any distance they suffer. SteveC7010 and AdmiralCochrane 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OldRadioGuy Posted February 17, 2021 Report Share Posted February 17, 2021 You might try an Arrow beam made for the 70cm/440 ham band. They make some very high gain antennas. I have the moon bounce portable beam that I bought for my 2m/440 ham rig.You may find other models are better suited to your situation. I'm sure there are other makes as well.I guess the main point is that there is a lot more available for Ham 440MHz than GMRS and the match is probably good enough or tunable. My 440 mag mount antennas match pretty good on GMRS but I'm not sure if the beams are more critical.So do a little home work first. Vince wayoverthere and ke0eyh 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maddogrecurve Posted July 24, 2021 Report Share Posted July 24, 2021 On 2/13/2021 at 5:41 PM, trickpony said: I have a small problem, I live in the middle of nowhere. The animas valley to be exact in a place called windmill. I have a Midland mxt115 with a 3db stubby antenna in my truck the problem is if I want to talk outside of the area I have to hope the weather is right in order to reach the repeater which is line of site 43 miles I know this is right because I have connected to the repeater "jack's peak" and talk to tucson and Abq. I want to set up a base station and be able to connect to the repeater to talk to other people without having to rely so much and the right weather conditions any Ideas as to the type of antenna i should get. and maybe a good suggestion on a radio. any help would be appreciated. thanks Rick WRKB393 Make yourself a dipole! Two wires some solder and a SO239 connector! Or you can use aluminum tubing or copper tubing as well. I am going to make one out of tubing because I have no trees to string wires up in. I have a small dipole stapled to the outside of my shop currently being used as a scanner antenna that resonates really well on the 470mhz band, though no repeaters in my area, maybe 70 miles or so is the nearest. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
taco6513 Posted July 24, 2021 Report Share Posted July 24, 2021 Set up a beam antenna pointed straight towards the repeater. Please check out his beam antenna: https://www.theantennafarm.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=191_193_258_977_978&products_id=4258 Use good quality "Times Microwave" cable. Stay away from 'made in China'. WRCW870 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BoxCar Posted July 24, 2021 Report Share Posted July 24, 2021 A Yagi is probably your best chance for reliable communications but the one taco6513 is suggesting is 6 feet long. The Browning BR-6356B is 42" and $80 less with close to the same gain. AdmiralCochrane and DeoVindice 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lscott Posted July 25, 2021 Report Share Posted July 25, 2021 One can also try a corner reflector type gain antenna. Look for “Corner Reflector” in the menus and click on it. They’re not very big for the gain. http://arrowantenna.org Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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