HYS Dual Band Telescopic/Rod Soft Antenna VHF/UHF BNC (8inch)-(14inch) 2M/70CM Antenna for Vertex HR146, HX300, HX320, HX400 Walkie Talkie

Purchased one of these for 1980's Yaesu FT-530 dual band HT. Nice BNC connector and well made. Perfect 8" for everyday use. Bonus if you want a 14", gently pull the top of the antenna and "thin wire" 6" will slide out from center of antenna. Works extremely well for its price. Better 2meter & 440 trans-receive than some of my $25-$35 Diamond, Comet, etc. So impressed with performance and the telescopic design that I purchased 2 more to store away. I paid $39 for a Diamond BNC metal telescopic that is approx. 6" when closed and 13" when fully extended. Only can transmit on Diamond when extended without radio damage. This HYS performs flawlessly with same range of local repeater (18 miles away) @ 1 watt without extending the hidden thin wire. My fav antenna out of 5 diff BNC's

It seems to be well built. I like the longer length. It works well on 2 meters but does need to be fully extended. At first I couldn't get the SWR down on 70cm. SWR was very high fully extended or collapsed. But I found that if I extended the antenna about 4.5 inches, then the 70cm SWR went to 1:1. I just have to remember the setting. But, I do like having a full-length antenna without loading coil losses so it's worth it to me.

Hooked it to my NanoVNA and it was all over the place until I fully extended the antenna.Fully extended it's tuned pretty well for 2m/70cm. My particular antenna is wonderful for 2m but a bit off for 70cm, it's peak is in the GMRS band.Overall I think this is a good value. It works a little better than the stock antenna that came with my radio.

Works Great!!!

I get good strong RSSI from analog frequencies on my BCD325P2 scanner.I don't use this scanner for much digital since everything in my vicinity is using simulcast, so I decided to use it for analog frequencies and get a better antenna than the stock one.Happy I got this one....

This was the first Hys antenna that really had decent to good swr across bands. You many need to play with the length just a bit to tune for the band you are in and mark it for future reference. Overall great price and good tension on the bnc connector. I purchased three antennas initially, and all tested withing .2 of each other. Will be buying more of these.Update: 8/7/23 - 5 stars is justified.SWR is 1.01 in both 2m and 70cm (better than any other Antenna I have tested on my HTs). **The trick is to attenuate as follows: a) fully extend for 2m band b) extend only 1/3 to half for 70cm. **For about $9, I have purchased about a dozen of these antennas. I even have one for a mobile BNC mag mount. The rigidity is on par with a standard rubber duck antenna, but flexible enough to avoid being damaged in a pack. Only potential weak point is the cap./tip. I would advise a little bit of heat shrink where the cap meets the radiator/emitter. I have a few Signal Stuff Signal Sticks that are now basically relegated to the 'backup bin".

The antenna seems fairly well built and is both sturdy and flexible, but it is mandatory to extend the whip when transmitting. Cross-checked testing with both a Vector Network Analyzer and a Bird wattmeter indicates that return loss/SWR is reasonably low (< 2:1) over both bands with the whip extended, but atrocious (> 6:1) with the whip collapsed. If you extend the whip about 75% then match is near perfect on UHF, extend it all the way for VHF. Just FYI.

The antenna itself seems fine. The problem was that on the first one, the BNC fitting would not seat properly on any of the BNC connectors that I had. It would almost seat, but I couldn't turn the collar enough to secure it.I ordered another, just on a whim, and it fits perfectly on all of my BNC based radios.I haven't seen any others that had this issue, but it is something to be aware of when buying lower priced antennas with less stringent quality control.