It depends on your coverage area and the lay of the land. If you've got hills and users in close with HT's, you might want to consider a lower gain antenna.
My first choice is the DB-408. Half the length and wind load/weight of the DB420 and it's much easier on your wallet. The 420 puts all you signal to the horizon. If that's where the bulk of your users are then consider that one. We changed out a 420 with a 408 at work and it made a huge improvement in our local HT performance and a considerable improvement in mobile coverage out to 15 miles - where we really needed the coverage. Rolling hills here. Brute force doesn't always get the results you expected. Chuck WB2EDV ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jeff" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Thursday, September 20, 2007 11:30 PM Subject: [Repeater-Builder] Lightning Damage, new UHF antenna needed > Hi all, > > Well, it finally happened. We got hit by lightning. And it blew the > antenna in half on the 444.325 machine here at the college. > > It wasn't a great antenna to begin with, obviously. We'd like to go > back with something much better if possible. We're thinking maybe a > multibay folded dipole antenna of some sort with an omni pattern like > the DB 404, but if there's a better choice we'd love to hear it. > > There don't seem to be a lot of choices in antennas tuned for Amateur > Repeaters. Most of the ones we're seeing are Part 90 antennas > (450-470 MHz). I don't know how much trouble it would be to retune > one or in the case of phased folded dipoles if it's even possible. > > What is the consensus Best UHF Repeater Antenna, considering all the > above (omnidirectional, probably no more than 100 watts)? > > Thanks in advance, > > Jeff/KD4RBG > >
