Smiley GMRS Antenna Test

[@charleshamilton635]

At 4:31 you say the short 5/8 wave did belter than the full 1/4 wave. Is the 5/8 wave you are referring to, the Smiley Slim Duck and the 1/4 wave the stock antenna? Or is the 1/4 wave the Slim Line? Thanks.

[@Soladaddy]

The Smiley 1/4 slim line. I expected the coiled 5/8 to lose more performance.

[@mdc21787]

I’d be interested to see the super stick in collapsed position compared to stock antennas

[@Soladaddy]

I recently did this with a Wouxun 916 antenna and it was about the same. Can hear the them in this video. kzbin.info/www/bejne/o2iYkGWDrql5mK8

[@kishascape]

The quality is good but they make their antennas way to short for most of them. the 5/8 slim came out perfect from my 170 MHz vhf itinerants but I struggle to find a decent one for my UHF 458 MHz side.

[@topshot95]

I love these antennas the only problem I ran into is with radios that use SMA female connectors I always break the connector on the antenna

[@Soladaddy]

I'll have to keep that in mind. So far so good.

[@rickymcdaniel6708]

need to put the super extended antenna on receptor radios also as well as yours and run a test. may do even better.

[@Soladaddy]

I do need see how far they can reach, with a base antenna.

[@Moonbogg]

What if the repeater antenna isn't good enough to reach back to the handheld you're using? I'm surprised that little repeater antenna reached all the way back when that extended smiley was needed to reach the repeater. Or maybe the smiley is also better at receiving, so that's why it can hear the repeater? Fun test you did!

[@Soladaddy]

The extended antenna will help receive the signal. It also sent a better signal to the repeater so the repeater's repeated signal had a little cleaner audio. There has been conditions where the radio I was using hear nothing back, yet another radio did. In that situation, the differences in the receivers and antennas are noted.

[@2148aa]

I did what you did in the the summer of 2021 with the same parrot repeater and two Radioddity GM-30s. Used the combo of stock, 5/8 wave, 2 meter. antenna cut shorter to balance SWR, A quarter wave car roof antenna and later a 1/2 wave house antenna with ground plane redials. Farthest I was able to talk with myself was 8 miles on high ground. Well under a 1 mile with a hill in the middle. Well under a mile with a green cornfield or leafy trees in the between. Walk next to a river and I am hearing factories or kids using FRS radios 20 miles away on the river. My latest toy is a Retevis RA25 GMRS that is jailbroken. We have 4 VHF school bus repeaters I can hear and chug with the correct tones. 20 miles is very doable. Closest GMRS repeaters are 60 miles away and I have to pick my battles on prefect mornings to hit them. If you want to talk radio to radio MURS is the best real world option. I've noticed Walmart stores must be upgrading there MURS store radios. If I hear understandable traffic on MURS channel 4 I start looking for the Walmart often 5 miles away.

[@Soladaddy]

Yep, terrain is the biggest factor with UHF. Locally Walmart, Lowes and Sam's Club use MURS CH4, along with a couple construction companies. Been a long time fan of MURS from back when FRS/GMRS was overloaded.

[@alexkram]

I did a simplex test with my friend 8 miles away and my Super Stick GMRS worked great retracted but was much worse when extended. Weird and not what you are getting here.

[@Soladaddy]

It should do better extended, especially at that distance, assuming all environmental conditions were equal.

[@alexkram]

@ yeah it’s surprising for sure. It’s my best handheld antenna retracted though so I’m not complaining.

[@Tsch6373]

What is the SWR with these antennae?

[@Soladaddy]

Because the radio itself and the person holding the radio is the antenna's counterpoise HT antenna SWR can't be measured with a normal meter as the meter will be in the middle of the antenna. Smiley claims the resonate frequency is in the middle of the claimed freq and good for +/_ 5 MHz from the center. Short of a very expensive equipment collection I have to go with a trusted manufacturer.

[@RINNTY]

Nice test, Thank you.

[@jester5980]

Thanks….

[@Soladaddy]

Welcome!