Chuck, how far vertically above the portables would that 420-style antenna have been, considering the hills in the area, etc.
Laryn K8TVZ --- In Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com, "Chuck Kelsey" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > We had a DB-420 style antenna (actually it was made by Signals, but it was folded-dipole design) on our UHF repeater at work. We were constantly having difficulty with portables being able to hit and hold the repeater and they were no more than 1/2 mile out. The local M/A-Com shop kept saying "too much antenna." We changed it out to a DB-408 and the problem was corrected. We are in rolling hills and the antenna was about 70' above ground level at a water tank. I plotted the antenna pattern against topographic map data and discovered that the portables were in some deep nulls with the higher-gain antenna. > >
