NEW Amateur Ham Radio Workman UVS-300 144 / 440 MHz Dual Band Base Antenna

Great antenna. The joints between sections must be sealed to prevent water intrusion. Use liquid tape and then wrap with electric sealing tape and then paint again with liquid tape. Antenna performs better than expected. My antenna's SWR measured less than 1.2:1 right out of the package. I use a Baofeng HT with only 5 watts output with a 100 ft feedline of RG8X so I need a good match.

Very poor workmanship. Threads on couplings bad. Could not get couplings to seat properly. Wrench was missing. Not worth the cost and effort to send it back

Quality of the antenna looks good. The two set screws to join the sections were missing. I was able to locate them locally without issue. I have not placed this in service just yet.I have been told / cautioned to weather seal the coupling joints as the radome seals may not be enough for the long haul.UPDATE December 2013After about 4 months in service, and despite my best efforts to seal up the coupling joints, water managed to get in. I used RTV, then layers of tape followed by black spray paint to resist UV rays and seal the tape edges. The VSWR / return loss shot up and performance declined sharply. I replaced it with a Hustler G7.

The UVS-300 is my first adventure into ham antennas. In the past, I was a avid CB'er with ground planes, beam antennas. This antenna was very simple to assemble and very lite weight to mount. The only minor problem was that the instruction sheet said to, "tighten securely with special wrench (16) wrench on flat sides of shell joints". If there was a special wrench included, mine was missing ! AND bolts (27) that secured the upper support pipe (24) to the mounting brackets (26) were to short. The bolts bottomed out without touching the support pipe. Had to go to a hardware store and purchase longer bolts. Antenna has been up about 3 weeks. Excellent signal reports. I would still recommend this well designed, lite weight antenna.

great antenna ,, just tape and seal all conections and use lmr 400 coax ,, any thing else is a waste of time ,, using rg8 you mise well junk your project ,,,and mine ring up works all 2 meter and 70 meter perfect swr,, and tune,,

Not sure of the materials but so far, I've had it in fairly high winds and it has stood up to it. I've also had it in an ice storm and it's still up. Performance seems to be very good. It's basically an unknown manufacturer (at least to me) but it works. SWR is low pretty much throughout the bands.

I like the performance of the antenna but I can't bring down the SWR on 2 meter amateur band. Tuning is only available on 70 cm. It is resonant on 142 Mhz, measuring at 1.5:1 SWR. It then shoots above 3:1 SWR at 144Mhz then 5:1 on 148Mhz.

This is a very good ground plane antenna for the price. The antenna functions very well and has a swr of less than 1.5:1 throughout the entire 2 meter band (at least mine does). It is made to a price, so there are some issues. The sections don't screw together tightly, so I took extra care in waterproofing those connections. The top is covered with a black plastic cap, which will probably need inspected yearly. Just recently, mine has gone through 60 mph gusts and came through with no damage. I would recommend this antenna to anyone looking for an alternative to the much more expensive versions it.