HYS High Gain Dual-Band VHF/UHF Yagi Antenna 9.5/11.5dBi 100W - 144MHz & 430MHz Outdoor Directional Antenna for Ham Radio, Repeater Systems, Mobile Digital Communications w/U-Bolt Mount (TC-YG08UV)

I used this connected to my handheld transceiver to reach a specific repeater about 27 miles from my location. While I could hear with static previously, I could not broadcast and be heard. Using this antenna only about 9' in the air, I made a strong and clear transmission verified by the net operator. I'm very pleased with the result. It is directional and fairly light weight aluminum. Assembly was relatively easy; tiny little screws. The holes are not pre-threaded, so a couple of the screws were difficult to thread. Still only took 10 to 15 minutes to assemble. Not sure how durable it would be left outdoors in bad weather. But for the price, this solved my range problem nicely.

With a 50 year military and engineering career behind me, as well as, this great hobby, the antenna is a no-brainer. It was quick to assemble, all parts quality, tuned already for the 2m/70cm bands, and had it up in 30 minutes. Reading the manual is imperative or else the antenna will not tune the right bands. Material was packaged better than most previous antennas I have had here in the USA or in the EU. Unless you are a victim of that one in a million quality control freak point, the antenna is worth its value.

It does have excellent gain! VERY lightweight and great for POTA. That said, it's fairly flimsy. If a large bird perched on one of it's elements, the antenna may not survive. UPDATE- After using it a while, the VHF elements got loose. They are not continuous elements and are held together with little screws and rivets. 2M tuned too high in the band and the tuning adjustments were too tight to loosen. With a slight breeze, the loose VHF elements wiggle around and cause reception instability making it junk. Purchase it only as a 70cm beam. Forget the 2M use. This COULD have been a great antenna for both 70cm and 2M if the elements had been continuous rods, and it was able to be tuned. What a shame.

I was pleased with how well organized this antenna kit is. Since I believe reading instructions is a sign of weakness, I set about assembly from a pure logic starting point, found the pieces well marked and went to work. I had it together in about 25 minutes. (OK, I did look at the instructions for one quick moment. Keep that secret.) This antenna is set at the factory for a wide range of VHF and UHF frequencies so I did some quick, rough, tuning. I had to guess on the Gamma match procedure but found the tiny set screws and slid the "tuning bar" up and down the VHF radiator. I will do a better job of this in the future but I needed to get on the air for an ARES Net and didn't devote the time to careful adjustments. That will come later. As I my RigExpert antenna analyzer only covers VHF bands, I can not offer any info on UHF. The photos tell the story: Very reasonable SWR on the 2m Ham band. Using this antenna, aimed at a repeater 35 miles away, with a 5 watt hand-held, I get excellent signal reports.

This antenna performs excilently. It was easy to install and very directional in veritical mode. I use it every day on 2 Meter with great signal strength reports. I have yet to try it on 440, but I am confident that it will perform just as well there. Great buy.

The antenna receives well but that is about all it's good for. See my attached photos and video of two different SWR meters, no amount of adjusting the gamma match made a difference. The lowest SWR was 1MHZ wide at 144-145MHZ. Construction also was poor, some of the holes weren't even fully drilled. If I were you I wouldn't waste my time on this. Consider my time lost your gain. <--- see what I did there?

I will preface that I do have a replacement on the way. But the one I received was bad could not tune swr and the so239conection the threads were bad and the connection was not long enough to connect good coax to it. For the price this first one I received is junk. I ignored some of the reviews and took a chance. If the replacement is like this one, then all of the bad reviews were correct and I should have listened to them I will update when I receive the replacement antenna Update********** I did get the replacement and still could not get it to tune for the bands they say. I was able to get the SWR to 2.5 on 440 but it would not tune on 2 meters

I am using the antenna to monitor (American) railroad communications at 160.3 MHz. and railroad End of Train (EOT) at 457.9 MHz. I have a vector network analyzer (NanoVNA). I found if you don't install 1/2 of element 1 and the opposing side of element 8, you can get about 10 dB of return loss at both frequencies of interest. It works well for me.

Measurements on a VNA suggest this antenna is reasonably well tuned. Constructon seems adequate and not hard to assemble. Have yet to put it in use ( waiting for a rotator to go with it ) but looks the goods.

I finally had an opportunity to try this beam out. I attached it to the rack on my truck and was making FM simplex contacts 60 km away with 30 watts. I was at a high elevation which helped. There was a 2 meter ssb net going on that gave me a great chance to get some signal reports. The SWR was great all through the band. It was easy to assemble. I did replace a couple of screws that connect the boom sections with ones slightly larger in diameter for a tighter fit.

Upon opening the package and discovering the contents I was not hopeful about putting this together. I could not have been more wrong. It took 5 minutes to build as each element was numbered and its location on the beam also numbered to match the elements. Only issue is I had 4 screws left over and I could not find a location for them. Only issue I have is that should you want to operate this beam horizontal you will need to drill the beam. But I will buy this again ......... thank you seller for a wonderful product!!!!!!

The antenna works just fine easy to assemble and Install.

Swr ajustements.