Antenna

Post Reply
M7GWH
Posts: 5
Joined: Thu Dec 26, 2019 1:02 am

Antenna

Post by M7GWH » Wed Jan 22, 2020 7:18 am

Is it worth buying an aftermarket antenna for my GD-77? If so what's worth looking at?

VK3KYY
Posts: 7484
Joined: Sat Nov 16, 2019 3:25 am
Location: Melbourne, Australia

Re: Antenna

Post by VK3KYY » Wed Jan 22, 2020 9:27 am

M7GWH wrote:
Wed Jan 22, 2020 7:18 am
Is it worth buying an aftermarket antenna for my GD-77? If so what's worth looking at?
If you have a hotspot, buying one of the SRH805S 4cm long antenna is handly for short range use. The ones you can buy from eBay etc are usually clones, and only work well on 70cm, but if you can get one cheaply, they are still worth having.

User avatar
m1dyp
Posts: 601
Joined: Sat Nov 16, 2019 8:03 am
Location: Hertfordshire, U.K.
Contact:

Re: Antenna

Post by m1dyp » Wed Jan 22, 2020 11:05 am

i tried a nagoya NA701 but found no significant improvement to the stock antenna

kt4lh
Posts: 272
Joined: Sun Jan 12, 2020 4:27 am

Re: Antenna

Post by kt4lh » Wed Jan 22, 2020 12:58 pm

Another hotspot suggestion; NA810 antenna's. Very short, flexible, and work perfectly fine around the house. Beyond that, besides a few bad ones, most OEM antennas aren't that bad. Often you have to get to the 8" aftermarket antennas to match them and the longer antennas to beat them. I often use the NA717 style antenna as they're very light and the antenna is very thin and whippy and don't get in the way. I've never really found the 17" NA771 etc to be that much better an antenna and they're horrid for using.

If you need real reach, look into a telescoping antenna, but those are of very limited use but they do have use cases. I often would pack one in my bag when hiking in case I needed that much more to get out, but didn't want to carry like a portable jpole and coax around with me and fool with all of that.

At some point I suspect the receiver in the GD77 would get overloaded with too much antenna gain, so keep that in mind. Haven't really tested it on it, as I've only used it as an HT, but other single conversion SDR receivers will easily overload and essentially go deaf.

VK3KYY
Posts: 7484
Joined: Sat Nov 16, 2019 3:25 am
Location: Melbourne, Australia

Re: Antenna

Post by VK3KYY » Wed Jan 22, 2020 8:07 pm

Btw.

I have the official long flexible antenna, as well as the short 15cm long antenna, and the long antenna does not appear to be appreciably better, even on 2m

User avatar
DG1YFX
Posts: 25
Joined: Fri Dec 13, 2019 11:16 pm
Location: Wiesbaden, DE
Contact:

Re: Antenna

Post by DG1YFX » Wed Jan 22, 2020 8:29 pm

No risk, no fun...
I just ordered this: https://www.amazon.de/Antenne-Helical-A ... B00SO651VU :lol:

73s
Jens

User avatar
DU2XXR
Posts: 191
Joined: Thu Nov 28, 2019 5:25 am
Location: Philippines
Contact:

Re: Antenna

Post by DU2XXR » Thu Jan 23, 2020 5:44 am

You won't go wrong with original Diamond RH701 and RH771 (if you're going for BNC, you'll need an adaptor, though). But if for hotspot use, I would go for something more low-profile.

User avatar
W1AEX
Posts: 126
Joined: Sat Nov 16, 2019 9:00 pm
Location: Connecticut, USA
Contact:

Re: Antenna

Post by W1AEX » Thu Jan 23, 2020 3:56 pm

I did what Ken did for both of my GD77 radios and bought Nagoya NA-701 antennas to replace the stock antennas. I would agree with his assessment that the TX/RX performance is not much different from the stock antennas, however, I was mainly interested in them because they are way more flexible than the stock antennas. The biggest boost I got was when my second GD77 came with the +14 inch long extended antenna and I stuck that on my hotspot. I now see S9+46dB RSSI in the PiStar dashboard when operating at 250mw from anywhere in the house.

I think a lot of the bad reports coming from users of the stock GD77 antenna are caused because the short center pin of the stock antenna is not seated into the SMA connector due to the fat rubber bottom of the antenna that makes it difficult to tighten down the antenna fully. I had to reduce the width of the rubber/plastic piece at the bottom of the stock antenna to get it to fit into the plastic ring around the GD77 antenna connector so that the center pin would engage.

73, Rob W1AEX

Post Reply