Baofeng HTs and aftermarket antennas

[WRPH745]

I have a GT5R and a couple of UV5Gs as starter radios. I understand what they are.

Here is my question: 

Should I or should I not replace the stock antennas?

For every article I read about replacing the Baofeng stock antenna with an aftermarket antenna for improvement I can find one that says don't bother because an aftermarket antenna will overload the Baofeng receivers.

Anyone have any experience with swapping out the stock antennas?

 

Thanks

 

 

 

[WyoJoe]

45 minutes ago, WRPH745 said:

I have a GT5R and a couple of UV5Gs as starter radios. I understand what they are.

Here is my question: 

Should I or should I not replace the stock antennas?

For every article I read about replacing the Baofeng stock antenna with an aftermarket antenna for improvement I can find one that says don't bother because an aftermarket antenna will overload the Baofeng receivers.

Anyone have any experience with swapping out the stock antennas?

 

Thanks

 

 

 

In the articles I've read, I've seen the same things you have, but really, this will depend on how you plan to use your radios. If you're using them for close range communication, of say, a mile or two, you may not have any reason to change antennas. If you're trying to squeeze out every inch out of your radio's range, then it might make sense for you to change the antenna. I use a repeater at my house for local communications around the neighborhood, and I can hit the repeater effectively using stock antennas from 2 to 3 miles out. Beyond that, and I start getting behind hills or into valleys, and an aftermarket antenna may work marginally better, but because of terrain, I don't get a lot of benefit from it.

[BoxCar]

With hand-helds a longer antenna will let you receive a signal a little better but do extremely little for improving your talk-out range.

[SteveShannon]

1 hour ago, BoxCar said:

With hand-helds a longer antenna will let you receive a signal a little better but do extremely little for improving your talk-out range.

Here's some actual measurements.  Sitting at my table the other day transmitted to the local DMR repeater.  I watched the results using the "Last Heard" window on the Brandmeister website. The Brandmeister window displays a bunch of useful things, including the signal strength of each transmission heard on a repeater on the network. It's a great tool for diagnosing issues with DMR.

Without moving from my chair, I swapped antennas back and forth.  The long one was a 17 inch TIDRadio 771 (not sure if it's a knock off or privately branded by Nagoya) on a 70 cm DMR HT and the short one was the 6 inch rubber ducky that came with my HT.  Using the longer antenna, when I transmit to the local repeater, which is 16 miles away with lots of buildings and trees in-between, I get an S8 reported by the repeater.  Using the standard rubber ducky I get an S6, which is 12 dBm lower.  In my opinion that's not insignificant.

During our weekly network check-in, using a Baofeng and a 24 inch antenna, a guy 45 miles away hit a 2 meter repeater at the same site.

I am impressed by the difference the longer antennas make. I'm sure there's something much better, but for the price, It may be good enough.

[PACNWComms]

I bought several Baofeng GT-3 radios about five years ago through Amazon. These were touted as being better because they came with a 23cm antenna that supposedly helped range over the stock antenna. Then I bought the same radio, but this one came with a very flexible, shorter and thicker antenna. they both worked the same, one just had a very thin, longer, but still flexible antenna. I never noticed any real world issue with each antenna, pro or con. the one with the longer antenna just became a better pointing device. Granted they are Baofeng, and might get overloaded easily, but they both work the same from a "my ear" and usable range perspective. I never connected these to test equipment to quantify any metrics though....not even sure where one of them is these days. But they did serve to get me back on the air when I wanted to find out what the rumors were about these new cheap radios that came into the market.

[ABTOCMEPTb]

A bit off topic, but....its not antennas.

uv5r on high power were giving me half a mile range no matter what antenna I used. I got two AMP‑U25 amplifiers and my range went to 4 miles simplex. It maybe even longer I never had a chance to repeat that test.

I am not saying that is the way to go or if its worth it $$ but it definitely points out to low power in those radios.

[WyoJoe]

1 hour ago, ABTOCMEPTb said:

A bit off topic, but....its not antennas.

uv5r on high power were giving me half a mile range no matter what antenna I used. I got two AMP‑U25 amplifiers and my range went to 4 miles simplex. It maybe even longer I never had a chance to repeat that test.

I am not saying that is the way to go or if its worth it $$ but it definitely points out to low power in those radios.

Even though you say this is off topic and is not about antennas, I would argue that it actually is about antennas, but not "HT" antennas.

I think the biggest difference when using an amplifier like you describe is that it uses a more sophisticated antenna system. It could be as simple as a mag-mount antenna on a pizza pan, or as complex as a tower-mounted antenna system, but either way, it's a vast improvement over the rubber ducky.

Even without the amplifier, if you set up an external antenna like what's needed with the amplifier, you will see an improvement in range.

The problem with that is that you lose the portability of the radio, and it's no longer hand held at that point.

[ABTOCMEPTb]

I tried mounting decent antenna on top of the car at first, but it did not improve anything range wise. Exactly that made me experiment with higher power. But I also agree and forgot to mention that those apms were connected to better antennas.

[WyoJoe]

15 minutes ago, ABTOCMEPTb said:

I tried mounting decent antenna on top of the car at first, but it did not improve anything range wise. Exactly that made me experiment with higher power. But I also agree and forgot to mention that those apms were connected to better antennas.

I've used a hand held radio in a mobile configuration simply by connecting a mag mount antenna on top of the car and using a battery eliminator to power it.

Most of the time, I'm just monitoring the radio, but with only those improvements, the reception is much better than with the rubber ducky antenna.

I can't speak much to transmitting, though, because I haven't tried using it outside of the normal range where the rubber ducky would work.

[smokey262]

FWIW, I have a UV-5R with a NA-771G and I can hit a repeater that is 14.6 miles from my house reliably when I am upstairs. Downstairs its spotty. Its only $20ish bucks extra

[Lscott]

6 hours ago, WyoJoe said:

The problem with that is that you lose the portability of the radio, and it's no longer hand held at that point.

That sort of depends on your definition of hand held.

There are people that go hiking or bike riding with a small back pack. In the backpack is a small battery, sometimes a small amp, with an antenna mounted on the backpack frame. The antenna is a no ground plane design. 

The user just runs a short jumper cable from the radio’s antenna port to the backpack.

While this is for Ham radio many of the ideas could be applied to GMRS.

https://mqc.beepworld.it/apps/download?f=%2FDOC%2FBiblioteca%2FWA3WSJ_s_PM_Handbook.pdf

You might want to do some searching for bicycle mobile too. I’ve seen some very clever setups for using a hand held radio on a bike with a good mobile antenna etc. 

[WyoJoe]

52 minutes ago, Lscott said:

That sort of depends on your definition of hand held.

There are people that go hiking or bike riding with a small back pack. In the backpack is a small battery, sometimes a small amp, with an antenna mounted on the backpack frame. The antenna is a no ground plane design. 

The user just runs a short jumper cable from the radio’s antenna port to the backpack.

While this is for Ham radio many of the ideas could be applied to GMRS.

https://mqc.beepworld.it/apps/download?f=%2FDOC%2FBiblioteca%2FWA3WSJ_s_PM_Handbook.pdf

You might want to do some searching for bicycle mobile too. I’ve seen some very clever setups for using a hand held radio on a bike with a good mobile antenna etc. 

While it's true that in those cases, the radio is still "portable," I would not call it "hand held." Essentially, at least to me, they would fall into the category of "mobile" rather than hand held. While the base radio may still be an HT, it isn't being used in that manner in these cases.

I would like to find a simple antenna for mounting on my bike, and another for mounting on my backpack. In both instances, I think I will have to fabricate something since I have yet to find something readily available that would work out of the box, so to speak.

I opened the handbook that you linked and started reading it, but there's a lot there to digest, most if it geared toward HF operation. I'll have to take some time with it. While it interests me somewhat, I am more interested in "pedestrian mobile" UHF/VHF dual-band or GMRS operation, as opposed t HF. For HF, I have a portable radio and antenna system, but I don't have any intention of operating it while walking. I'm only interested in setting it up when in camp or at another suitable destination.

[Lscott]

You can take a look at this one. It’s specifically for GMRS.

https://www.arcantenna.com/products/gmrs-mobile-vehicular-antenna-base-loaded-chrome-coil-rugged-no-ground-plane-required-with-spring-rbc-450-5-ns

With no ground plane required you can use it just about anywhere.

Some of the dual band J-pole like antennas are another possibility for backpacking. Again no ground plane required. These you can hang on a string in a tree or zip tie to a fiberglass pole on your backpack frame. Also being dual band you can use either your GMRS or MURS radio with it.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/222236729087

[gman1971]

I found that adding a tiger tail, or rat tail, to my old GT-3 radio helped a lot... just add a short piece of wire to the outer side of the SMA.

G.

[PACNWComms]

6 hours ago, gman1971 said:

I found that adding a tiger tail, or rat tail, to my old GT-3 radio helped a lot... just add a short piece of wire to the outer side of the SMA.

G.

The addition of a counterpoise definitely helps my Baofeng GT-3's and Anytone 878 as well. I do know many people that still use the magnet mount antenna and vehicle charger route for handhelds, and it does help a bit. Somewhere I still have a magnet mount antenna for AM CB, but use lip mounts for mobile and handheld radios in cars now.