Tram 1477-B Pre-Tuned 144MHz–148MHz VHF/430MHz–460MHz UHF Amateur Dual-Band Base Antenna, Black Fiberglass, 43" Tall

This has been an excellent antenna so far! I have it mounted up on 20 foot mast and hit quite a few repeaters with excellent audio quality. Very pleased.

A well built antenna. I really like it!

Likes:--Construction is quite rugged.--Antenna performs well "overall".--Bandwidth nicely wide on 430/440 band. VSWR at resonance in this band was 1.04:1.--VSWR at resonance on 2m was 1.02:1 with narrower bandwidth.--Price is very good.--Amazon partner from whom it was purchased shipped immediately. I would buy from them again.Dislikes:--Resonant point on 430/440 was kind of low. Minimum VSWR occurred at 434MHz. Great if you're working satellites, but VSWR up near 448MHz was already above 2.5:1. 450MHz was above 3:1. This is getting a bit high in the FM/Repeaters section of the band that gets a lot of activity. It would have been much better to have had the resonant point for minimum VSWR right at 440MHz. Then the wide bandwidth would nicely cover the entire 430-450 range with VSWR's at the edges between 2:1 and 2.5:1, making the best use of "centering" the design.--Resonant point for the 2m band was too high up. Minimum VSWR was at 147.8MHz (less than 1.1:1). At 148MHz the VSWR was just under 1.4:1. Going in the other direction below resonance, the VSWR climbed rapidly with 145.6 being 2.5:1 and 144 at 3:1 or a little bit higher. Again, the tuning of the antenna could have been centered better, say for minimum VSWR at 147MHz or a little below that. 146.52, the national FM calling channel came in at 1.5:1 for the VSWR. This is acceptable, but there are repeaters below 146MHz.--BTW, all of my measurements were made with a NanoVNA-H4. The antenna is still quite useful even with the skewed resonance points so, I rate it a 4, as it is a vast performance improvement over home made J-Poles.--There are NO assembly instructions, nor even a single diagram of the built antenna or a photocopy of a parts list. I've been doing engineering as a career and have been a ham over 50 years so bags of parts didn't scare me off, but beginners would have problems and would likely get frustrated and give lower ratings.--SURPRISE...the hardware is all METRIC !!! What I thought was SAE 1/4-20 hardware was a bit smaller and finer pitched in thread size. Lose something and you're hosed without a trip to Ace Hardware or Home Depot !!! It would have been nice to have had a photocopy parts list pointing out this important fact !!!--Three small hex head bolts were included in the baggie of hardware. Only two such parts were needed with their split washers. One was used to push against the lower mounting tube the antenna and its radials on its base section telescope onto for mounting and weather protection. The other was supposed to go through the threaded upper mounting clamp (just like the lower one), but also pass through a hole in the mounting tube, and then catch some threads in the antenna base. This was to secure the base to the mounting tube and also keep the antenna's base from twisting. The supplied bolt was too short. It had about 3/8" of threads. It needed to have 1/2" to 5/8"'s of threads to do its intended job. So now I have two spare but short hex head M8 bolts, and one split washer left over.--This is how I discovered the hardware was Metric threaded: I had reached for a 1/4-20 SAE bolt from my stash for the upper mounting clamp and found it didn't thread. So I didn't force it. Instead I got a Phillips head M8 spare screw from some Metric hardware I bought at Ace Hardware when I was mounting a transceiver in my old 2007 Tacoma pickup onto the bulkhead behind the bench seat in this truck's standard (small) cab. It fit the threads perfectly, but I had to put several flat washers under the Phillips head along with the intended Metric split washer because this M8 screw had about 3/4" of threads on it. So, overall, it was about a 1/4" too long. But it fit the bill without having to scrounge a Stainless Steel M8 screw of the necessary length. So, my antenna is now fully installed with this minor mod.Bottom line:--Despite the noted shortcomings which I list as a warning to others. I feel the performance obtained and overall robustness of design (black fiberglass is both low profile, hard to see, and absolutely necessary in the strong UV of the Arizona sun of summer), make $59 for this antenna ($63 with tax) a very good value. Just be prepared to maybe make a trip to the hardware store to finish your own installation to your satisfaction.A good end result, but "caveat emptor".

I live in an HOA community so I needed something low profile but one that also did the job. Mounted on a 20 foot telescoping flag pole, I can hit several local repeaters on low power and a repeater 43 miles away (as the crow flies) on high power. When the flagpole is retracted, the entire assembly is less than 6’ tall. Besides 2m & 70cm, I can get about 6 GMRS frequencies under an SWR of 2. All things considered, this antenna meets all my needs with good performance and very reasonable price.

works great

Simple to put together and install. Good value for the price. Perfect for attic, roof or remote setup.

Although the specs do not call out for GMRS, it does come in low. With 100 Feet of LMR-400, the SWR for GMRS was over 2.3 using the repeater channels (higher freq). I was told you want to keep the LMR400 under 65 feet for the best SWR on GMRS. When I reduced the LMR400 to 65 feet (it just happened to work out this way), See the sweep charts for 144MHz–148MHz , 430MHz–460MHz and 462MHz-470MHz

After 10 months, the antenna will not transmit on the 2m sid,e and swr readings are 3.5 on 70 cm and over 5 on 2m. Tram will not honor their warranty when I called them. If you want to pay $65 a year to talk on your radio go for it. I loved the antenna before the issue occurred but the customer service is enough to say I will never repurchase a tram antenna nor will my ham club. I going to move over to Diamond for the next antenna.