Suggestions for antennas for Baofeng UV5G and Tidradio TD-H3 please.

[WSAL750]

I have watched numerous videos on the stock and replacement antennas. Some short ones seem better and then the 771 series show off.  Anyone using Smiley 5/8 wave or Signal Stick 440 ?  I will be using it on both simplex and local repeater, hilly and with trees in area. Thanks for any input or suggestions.

[amaff]

I use either the OE antennas or Nagoya 701Gs, but I also keep a Signal Stick 440 wrapped up in my hiking backpack.

 

99.9% of the time, the longer SignalStick & 771 antennas (which some of my radios came with as well) just sit around because, at least out in the open here in northern Utah, I can get 50+ miles with the OEM antennas. Only reason I like the 701s is that they're even shorter than the rubber duckies so they get in the way less when out and about.

[WRXB215]

Like @amaff I prefer the 701s. In my very limited tests, I don't get enough out of the 771s to make them worth the trouble.

[Guest]

Well using a radio on or off a repeater has no bearing on the antenna.   The stock antennas for me do 30/35!miles well but when I use the 771 antennas I get 60plus.  So around double the distance.   I refuse the pay more for an antenna then for the radio so the smileys are out    We use them mostly out doors on quads and horse back and use our radios every day of the week. 

[WRYZ926]

I have a couple of Nagoya 771 antennas. I have them for my dual band and GMRS radios.  They make a slight improvement when used with my Baofeng hand held radios. I don't feel like the improvement is worth the cost or having to deal with the longer antenna. The Nagoya antennas were no better or even worse than the stock rubber duck antennas on my Icom, Explorer QRZ1, and Wouxun hand held radios.

I don't have any experience with the Smiley or Signal Stick antennas.

[Borage257]

Smileyantenna has a decent lineup of monoband antennas.

Signalstick and Zbm2 industries has good dual band whips

Those are all mom-and-pop companies based in the USA if that’s important 

[LeoG]

I have the TD-H3 with the OEM the Smiley Rubber Duck 5/8ths wave and the Nagoya 771G.  The 771G is king.  Both for transmit and receive on simplex and duplex.  Of the 3 antennas I have it works the best for all purposes.  That being said it is tall.  It gets in the way.  People might look at you funny LOL. 

The Smiley 5/8th wave is a very good antenna.  It is at least as good as the OEM and better in most circumstance.  Best thing is it is small.  It is convenient to use.  Makes the H3 compact.  When I was playing repeater with it setup in my truck at ground level, through hills and trees I was able to get about 1.3 miles with the Smiley and 1.8 miles with the Nagoya.

[92U235]

that being said, that being said, that being said

[WRTC928]

I've had very good results with Nagoya 701s and 771s, both in terms of range and clarity. There are doubtless other good antennas on the market, but these worked for me, so I stuck with them.

[Lscott]

On 1/6/2025 at 3:48 PM, 92U235 said:

that being said, that being said, that being said

The higher up you can get the antenna the better, even on a hand held radio. Just have to get a bit creative about how to do it.

It’s a 1/4 wave ground plane zip tied to a baseball type hat. The antenna is only a touch more than 6 inches tall for the top element. It’s made using nothing more than a cheap female PCB type BNC connector and 1/16 inch diameter buss wire. Then I used about a 3 foot adapter cable, BNC male to SMA male, with real skinny coax for flexibility and a 90 degree BNC male to female adapter.

[Lscott]

You would be surprised just how well it works. The match is far better than the screw-on antennas you can buy. Look at the simulated SWR match and the measured results. 

This shows a simple 1/4 wave ground plane has enough bandwidth to cover the typical usable range on the Ham 70cm band through the full GMRS range. That was the goal of the project. I’ve used this on a couple of trips to the Dayton Hamvention the past few years. 

Running my NX-1300DUK5 DMR radio at the 1 watt setting, on simplex, results in solid communications while keeping the RF exposure to about 0.5 watts average due to the TDMA nature of DMR.