Top-Performing Eightwood Dual Band VHF UHF Ham Mobile Radio Antenna PL259: Boost Your Ham Radio Transmitting Range with Magnetic Base & 5M Cable! Review

Physicists tell me that this antenna picks up strong signals well but probably doesn't transmit them well. And that's exactly what happened. Strong signals were received very well. Actually surprisingly good. But when it came to transmission, a few miles per 2 meters was the max at 25 watts. If you enjoy listening to ham radio or need a fairly discreet antenna outside of your car for a low powered HT, this is probably the way to go. Otherwise, it's not ready for prime time. I can only imagine…

I purchased this antenna for use with my DMR VHF/UHF ham radio in the car. The antenna is not branded. The base is labeled Eightwood and there is no documentation in either package so there is no resource to determine which bands this antenna is intended to operate on or what the expected VSWR should be. I have attached photos of the frequency sweeps I took this antenna down when it was mounted on the roof of my car with the coax cable routed as I would use it. UHF amateur radio bands except…

Okay I wasn't expecting impressive performance from this flat antenna. I was fine with that, but the SWR on the American amateur 2m band isn't very good. According to my antenna analyzer, it drops in the 144.5-145MHz range, but in the 147MHz range it exceeds 3:1. The SWR is much higher on both sides just outside the amateur range. The lowest SWR I could get was around 1.5:1 and I could live with that. If the midpoint was closer to 146MHz, it would be almost fine. For those who are interested, I