I may have been overthinking antennas.

[WRTC928]

I went wild and did some field testing today. I don't have sophisticated equipment to test antennas, but I set out to answer two "practical use" questions: (1) Which one talks the most farz? (2) How likely is it to damage my radio? The test radio was a TYT TH-9800 in my car operating on simplex and the receiving/responding radio was a Baofeng AR-5RM with an HYS 701 antenna used by my buddy at my house. The answer to the first question was both easy and surprising. I tested all of them in a number of locations in about a 10 mile radius from my house and they all did about equally well, making 6 miles pretty easily, a bit more in some locations, and fading after that. Some of them lost signal pretty quickly on MURS and GMRS, but they weren't designed for that, so I don't hold it against them. The Comet SBB-1 and Nagoya NMO-72 tended to have a little less background noise, but with all of them, the signal became unintelligible at about the same locations. Antennas matter, but terrain matters more.

For the second question, I tested SWRs on each antenna on the 2 meter, 70 centimeter, GMRS, and MURS bands. (Don't start. I know the rules. I'm a grown-ass man. I'll take my chances.)  I tested each band on each end and in the middle and on a few random frequencies. I assigned a value to the SWR ranges: 4 = nearly perfect SWR 1.00-1.02, 3=pretty good SWR 1.03-1.49, 2=good enough SWR 1.50-2.00, 1=prefer not to use it but probably wouldn't do any harm SWR 2.01-2.50, 0=too high for my comfort SWR 2.51 or higher. The antenna got the score that was highest of the SWRs in that band.

Comet SBB-1          2m-1     70cm-4     GMRS-3     MURS-3

Comet SBB-2          2m-2    70cm-3     GMRS-3     MURS-3

HYS 144/430          2m-2     70cm-3     GMRS-3     MURS-1

Comet SB-15          2m-4     70cm-4     GMRS-0     MURS-3

Nagoya NMO-72    2m-3     70cm-4     GMRS-2     MURS-3

Compactenna         2m-3     70cm-4     GMRS-2     MURS-1

Surprise! The lowly Nagoya NMO-72 is perfectly usable across all four bands. The Comet SB-15 is perfect on 2m and 70cm, pretty good on MURS and unusable on GMRS. However, it's a quad-band 10m/6m/2m/70cm antenna. It already has a lot to do. I was a bit disappointed in the Comet SBB-1's 2m performance, since it's allegedly a 2m/70cm dual-band antenna. It was pretty good on 70cm, GMRS, and MURS, but I bought it for 2m/70cm. I probably won't be using it again. The SBB-2 was about as versatile as the Nagoya, but like the SBB-1, I expected a better showing on 2m. The Compactenna did very well on 2m and 70cm, not well on GMRS or MURS, which is to be expected, since it's marketed as a 2m/70cm antenna. 

Just because I had them lying around, I tested two GMRS-specific antennas as well, the Midland Ghost and the Nagoya UT-72G.

Ghost                       2m-0     70cm-0     GMRS-2     MURS-0

Nagoya UT-72G     2m-0     70cm-2     GMRS-3     MURS-0

Because the Ghost is a single-purpose antenna, I expected a bit better score in the GMRS band, but it got a 2 because one of the SWRs was between 1.6 and 2.0. Most of them were better. I know from having used it for several months that it punches above its weight in terms of performance in real-world applications. The UT-72G is also a single-purpose GMRS antenna, but the 70cm band is apparently close enough that it could be used in that band. Either of them should work just fine for regular GMRS use.

Conclusions: (1) You can do all the fancy antenna testing you want, but in the real world, there's not much difference in farz from one antenna to another. (2) There apparently really is such a thing as a "do-it-all" antenna if that interests you. (3) You might think the manufacturers of a single-purpose antenna would have them finely tuned to that band, but you'd be wrong, at least part of the time.

 

[nokones]

With an Antenna Analyzer I am getting 1.31:1 @ 462.625 MHz, 1.07:1 @ 465.000 MHz, and 1.49:1 @ 467.625 MHz with the Midland MTXA 25 Phantom Antenna and Midland MXTA 12 NMO Magmount.

[SteveShannon]

Nice job!  I really appreciate the fact that you didn’t get bogged down in reporting the decimal place for SWR. Way too many people look at 1.59:1 vs 1.51:1 and think it’s meaningful. The way you did it is good enough. 

[WRNU354]

1 hour ago, WRTC928 said:

I went wild and did some field testing today.

Good hands-on real-world testing yielding meaningful and actionable data!

Thanks!

[WRYZ926]

I only have the Comet SBB1. My results are smilier for GMRS and 70cm but mine does better on 2m than what yours does.

Using your numbering system. I would say my SBB1 is 2 for GMRS and between 2 and 3 for 2m and 70cm. The highest SWR I have seen when testing with a Comet CAA-500 and Rig Expert Stick Pro is 1.8 at 467 MHz. Everything else for 462 MHz, 70cm and 2m is 1.6 or lower.  

We could test several of the exact same antennas and get different results for each one.

The worst antenna I have and don't use is the Nagoya UT-72G. These are not NMO mount antennas, or at least mine isn't. They attach to the magnet mount using SMA connectors. My Melowave Shadow outperforms my UT-72G.

I am currently using a Tram 1174 NMO antenna that I cut/tuned for GMRS and the SWR on it is 1.4 on 467 and 1.2 on 462.

I get about 30-35 miles range using the Tram 1174 and Comet SBB1 on UHF and 55-60 miles on 2m when using our local repeaters. I get around 5-8 miles range on UHF when using simplex and 18-25 miles on 2m simplex. Again it depends on the terrain around me at the time. This is not bad for short 20 inch or less antennas.

[WRTC928]

2 hours ago, SteveShannon said:

Nice job!  I really appreciate the fact that you didn’t get bogged down in reporting the decimal place for SWR. Way too many people look at 1.59:1 vs 1.51:1 and think it’s meaningful. The way you did it is good enough. 

I tried to group the results into something that would make sense to me for practical applications. Excellent, good, not bad, tolerable, and nope. It's easier to work with than splitting hairs about 0.01 vs 0.02. I often say that "good enough" is a valid concept.

[WRTC928]

2 hours ago, WRYZ926 said:

I only have the Comet SBB1. My results are smilier for GMRS and 70cm but mine does better on 2m than what yours does.

Using your numbering system. I would say my SBB1 is 2 for GMRS and between 2 and 3 for 2m and 70cm. The highest SWR I have seen when testing with a Comet CAA-500 and Rig Expert Stick Pro is 1.8 at 467 MHz. Everything else for 462 MHz, 70cm and 2m is 1.6 or lower.  

We could test several of the exact same antennas and get different results for each one.

The worst antenna I have and don't use is the Nagoya UT-72G. These are not NMO mount antennas, or at least mine isn't. They attach to the magnet mount using SMA connectors. My Melowave Shadow outperforms my UT-72G.

I am currently using a Tram 1174 NMO antenna that I cut/tuned for GMRS and the SWR on it is 1.4 on 467 and 1.2 on 462.

I get about 30-35 miles range using the Tram 1174 and Comet SBB1 on UHF and 55-60 miles on 2m when using our local repeaters. I get around 5-8 miles range on UHF when using simplex and 18-25 miles on 2m simplex. Again it depends on the terrain around me at the time. This is not bad for short 20 inch or less antennas.

The SBB-1 didn't suck on 2m. Remember that the single highest SWR determined the rating. Most of them were much better and on any given day, it could have been different. But since the SBB-2 and NMO-72 performed a bit better, I don't really have a reason to use the SBB-1.

You are absolutely correct that using a different radio and a different ground plane would probably give different results. Even the same radio and ground plane could give different results on another day, but I think in general, they'd be reasonably close to today's results.

In terms of distance and clarity, the UT-72G did about the same as the others and its SWR on GMRS was very good. As always, your results may vary. Yes, it's a mag mount whereas the others were NMO, so it didn't connect in the same way. That may or may not have mattered, as all the others were NMO.

I absolutely can get much greater distances than I did today, but not in the undulating terrain west of my house. To the north and east, I can easily get 30 miles, but it wasn't really practical to test that today. There may be some point at which antennas will begin to fall and there would be one clear winner, but that was just too much to take on...this time.

From a practical standpoint, I stuck the Compactenna back on the roof because I mostly use 2m and 70cm, but I'll keep the Nagoya NMO-72 in the car in case I want to use a different band. It takes me less than a minute to switch them. If I were going for just GMRS, I'd use the Ghost. It performs just as well as the others and it's very low-profile. 

[WRYZ926]

23 minutes ago, WRTC928 said:

I tried to group the results into something that would make sense to me for practical applications. Excellent, good, not bad, tolerable, and nope. It's easier to work with than splitting hairs about 0.01 vs 0.02. I often say that "good enough" is a valid concept.

Nothing wrong with that at all. I like using the KISS principle. Keep It Simple Stupid. And you did a good job of keeping your results simple and easy to understand.

There are all kinds of variables that come into play. We all like to have the lowest SWR but that is not always possible. You are good as long as the SWR is 2.0 or below.

I have the Melowave Shadow (same as the Midland Ghost) but I've only compared it to the Nagoya UT-72G connected to my Wouxun KG-XS20G. The Melowave does better.

The SBB1 is about as tall of an antenna as I can use on my Ford Escape and it just barely clears the garage door. The Tram 1174 is a little shorter and it works well so I haven't bothered swapping it for the Melowave Shadow.

I might put the KG-XS20G in the wife's car and use the Melowave with it.

[Socalgmrs]

Most people really do over think antennas and radios in general.  terrain, height, line of sight  has MUCH more effect then antenna, radio, watts….  A $20 5w in the open with a rubber duck can easily do 20miles or more.   A $450 50w radio with a big powerful antenna in the woods or city may only do 3 miles.  That’s why especially in gmrs 460 MHz money will never equal miles.  
 

BUT the one thing I didn’t see but maybe I missed, you didn’t test swr.   An antenna may sound fine but if the swr sneaks up to far you can and for sure will kill your radio.  How fast and how bad all depends on the radio and the antenna and the swr but eventually a bad match will hurt your radio.    But I agree and use dual band 771 antennas on all my ht radios and they do great with gmrs and murs.  

[WRTC928]

3 minutes ago, WRYZ926 said:

There are all kinds of variables that come into play. We all like to have the lowest SWR but that is not always possible. You are good as long as the SWR is 2.0 or below.

That's kind of how I think about it. I might accept an SWR a bit higher than 2.0 if I didn't plan to use it much, but since there are antennas that perform <2.0 across all four bands, there's no need. 

[WRYZ926]

This is true. I would love to run my Comet 2x4SR on my Escape but it's just too tall to fit into my garage or into any parking garages. We all go with what works best for our situation.

I can definitely get buy with using the SBB1 if I wanted to but I like running a dual band and GMRS radio in my car so I run separate antennas.

[WRTC928]

13 minutes ago, Socalgmrs said:

BUT the one thing I didn’t see but maybe I missed, you didn’t test swr.   An antenna may sound fine but if the swr sneaks up to far you can and for sure will kill your radio.  How fast and how bad all depends on the radio and the antenna and the swr but eventually a bad match will hurt your radio.    But I agree and use dual band 771 antennas on all my ht radios and they do great with gmrs and murs.  

You definitely missed it. Go back and reread my original post. The numbers 4-0 correspond to my arbitrarily-assigned "brackets" of excellent, good, not bad, not ideal, and unacceptable. Like you, in my experience, the 771 series antennas from reputable manufacturers give good performance across all four bands, although I have never formally tested SWR on HT antennas.

[WRTC928]

14 minutes ago, Socalgmrs said:

Most people really do over think antennas and radios in general.  terrain, height, line of sight  has MUCH more effect then antenna, radio, watts….  A $20 5w in the open with a rubber duck can easily do 20miles or more.   A $450 50w radio with a big powerful antenna in the woods or city may only do 3 miles.  That’s why especially in gmrs 460 MHz money will never equal miles.  

Well, of course, I hope we all know that, but I always like to check things out for myself, if practical. It is certainly possible that in different terrain, I may have found one antenna definitely superior to the others. The takeaway for me was that for what I want to do, my farz will be acceptable no matter which antenna I choose.

Interestingly, I have used a 70cm repeater 20 miles from my house with a 2 watt Arcshell AR-5 and rubber duck antenna. The signal report was "almost full quieting". My house is in an elevated position with essentially nothing between my yard and the repeater. The Arcshell is the poster child for "cheap Chinese radio" and is practically disposable, but it does put out a decent signal.