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Posted

I’m looking for the best GMRS antenna. The ones I have picked out are the following. 
Nagoya 771G, Signal Stick dual band or 440, Smiley 5/8 Slim Duck 465, and the Abbree 771G. Which is the best from your experience on receiving and transmit. 

Posted
1 minute ago, WSHE513 said:

I’m looking for the best GMRS antenna. The ones I have picked out are the following. 
Nagoya 771G, Signal Stick dual band or 440, Smiley 5/8 Slim Duck 465, and the Abbree 771G. Which is the best from your experience on receiving and transmit. 

I haven’t tried all of them but Ham Radio Crash Course likes the Smiley and Signal Stick antennas. 


I have had good results with Diamond and Comet antennas. 

Posted
28 minutes ago, SteveShannon said:

I haven’t tried all of them but Ham Radio Crash Course likes the Smiley and Signal Stick antennas. 


I have had good results with Diamond and Comet antennas. 

I forgot about Diamond and Comet

Posted

It will also depend on the brand of radio and the stock antenna it comes with. I have found in my testing that the Nagoya and Abbree 771G did make an improvement with my Baofeng UV-5R GMRS radios. My Wouxun KG-935G Plus does better with the stock antenna that comes with the radio.

The Signal Sticks are popular and work well for 2m and 70cm. I would want to see what the SWR actually is on 467 MHz and 462 MHz. Not all dual band antennas will work well on GMRS frequencies.

Posted
4 minutes ago, WRYZ926 said:

It will also depend on the brand of radio and the stock antenna it comes with. I have found in my testing that the Nagoya and Abbree 771G did make an improvement with my Baofeng UV-5R GMRS radios. My Wouxun KG-935G Plus does better with the stock antenna that comes with the radio.

The Signal Sticks are popular and work well for 2m and 70cm. I would want to see what the SWR actually is on 467 MHz and 462 MHz. Not all dual band antennas will work well on GMRS frequencies.

Yeah I’m running it on Baofeng radios so I decided to go with the Nagoya 771G since I’ve heard good reviews on that particular antenna 

Posted
4 hours ago, SteveShannon said:

I haven’t tried all of them but Ham Radio Crash Course likes the Smiley and Signal Stick antennas.

I'd prefer an antenna that had an SMA female connector on it than one with a BNC (or other) adapter. A properly-fitting SMA female antenna distributes the load (important when you've got a foot and a half of antenna sticking out) across both the radio case and the actual mating connector in the radio. The Baofengs don't have what I would consider a particularly robust connector mounting (two diagonal screws into the internal pot metal housing, and the center pin puts direct strain on the PCB).

Note: There was a batch of NA-701G antennas that were mis-molded (yes, they were genuine) so the plastic base of the antenna didn't touch the radio case. Those all went back for credit. I believe they're all out of the supply chain now.

Posted

Yup, depends on what radio you run.  Some antennas work better with some radios.  Some radios work best with the stock antenna.  I have the TD-H3 and the Nagoya 771G works best for receive and transmit.  The Smiley Rubber Duck works better than the stock by a bit and it's shorter.  It's also the same price as the HT.

Posted
On 3/3/2025 at 5:05 PM, WSHE513 said:

I’m looking for the best GMRS antenna. The ones I have picked out are the following. 
Nagoya 771G, Signal Stick dual band or 440, Smiley 5/8 Slim Duck 465, and the Abbree 771G. Which is the best from your experience on receiving and transmit. 

In my experience, individual radios have preferences, so it's not possible to predict which of a group of good antennas will work best with your radio. I have two identical Baofeng AR-5RMs and one of them likes a Nagoya 771 best while the other does a little better with an HYS. However, any of the antennas you have listed will almost certainly be a significant improvement over the stock antenna. My advice is to not overthink it. Pick one and see how it works.

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