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Reviews For: Comet GP-3 Dual Band Base Antenna

Category: Antennas: VHF/UHF+ Omnidirectional: verticals, mobile, etc

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Review Summary For : Comet GP-3 Dual Band Base Antenna
Reviews: 51MSRP: 89 (street)
Description:
Dual band (146 - 446 mhz) base station antenna. Fiberglass construction. Max power 200w. Length 5'11". Weight 2lbs 12 oz. SO-239 connector.
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.cometantenna.com
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
00514.9
VA3PDG Rating: 2017-02-16
Great Performance Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I own 3 of these. One is at the top of a 80' Tower, and has been for about 3 years. This antenna is great! Stands up to the wind and winter here in southern Ontario and performs really quite well. For the price, this is a great bit of kit imo.
K3ZXP Rating: 2016-10-16
great antenna for my needs. Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
I upgraded to this antenna in our new house and it has been up about 4 months. before thins had a Ringo ranger and a mobile antenna in the shack. it's mounted a chain link fence pole on the peak of the house about 25ft in the air. On this antenna i hear repeaters I never heard before and simplex stations that I didn't hear in the past or were scratchyI hearth all clearly. Last week when the south east got a hurricane we got heavy rain and wind gusts of up 60 + mph. also live in a very open area with large farm fields behind us. this antenna looks and works like the day I put it up.
KC9AAX Rating: 2016-02-27
Great antenna - lightweight, good performer Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
This antenna is a big improvement over the J-pole that I was using. It is much better on UHF and I am able to hit DMR repeaters in my area that I couldn't hit before. It is very lightweight and provides excellent protection from the elements. It is well made, very easy to install and I expect it will last for a long time.
VE7ABC Rating: 2016-02-05
Works as it should Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
A nice looking (neighbor friendly) antenna that performs. Easy to put together and install. I've got it about 5 feet above the BBQ hut_ 15 feet above ground - on a piece of 1 1/2" galvanized pipe and it allows me to work various repeaters with no problem. Have only tried one simplex contact (about 50 miles away) and was told that I had a good S8-S9 signal. The quality is very good and I'm happy with my purchase.
KY4TS Rating: 2014-08-13
Workhorse antenna! Time Owned: more than 12 months.
The RACES team I am involved with has several of these in use at the county EOC, a few fire departments, several hospitals and in our 2 mobile command posts, as well as a couple in emergency shelter kits. I've used them on tripods with 16' push up poles during county wide events at check points. They always perform to spec with no additional tuning required.
NZ0T Rating: 2013-06-18
Solid antenna! Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I have owned my GP-3 for several years now. It is lightweight, well made and has low SWR over both bands. A move meant I had to take my tower and antennas down and when I was putting everything back up at the new QTH I managed to drop my GP-3 from 30 foot. This broke the fiberglass cover leaving only about an 8 inch stub but the copper inner workings of the antenna were fine. I found a piece of PVC pipe that fit perfectly, glued it over the stub and put the antenna up. It worked perfectly until a huge storm blew the PVC off - guess I didn't use enough glue! The innards of the antenna drooped and blew around in the Kansas weather for about 18 months until I finally was able to bring the GP-3 down a couple of days ago. I cleaned it up, re-flowed some of the solder joints and tried fitting the PVC back over it. It worked great! This time I used copious amounts of JB Weld to glue the PVC on and put the antenna back up. It works like new with SWR as low as ever. I know this is an extreme example and NGC would certainly not recommend doing what I did but I'm sold on how well built these antennas are.
CR7000 Rating: 2012-11-18
Quality & Solid Performance Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I upgraded from a lower spec white stick type antenna which worked well, but i was always wondering what results a better antenna would bring......

Why did i not do this sooner, the difference is miles apart. This antenna gives me a good SWR across the VHF / UHF as advertised, and the comet quality is second to none.

Signals are so much stronger, and reports are better, and with the build quality i am sure it will still be in use a long time from now.

If you are consdiering one of these, then go get it, wish i had got one sooner

5 stars for a super performing and well built antenna
KE7DJQ Rating: 2012-09-03
Great Antenna Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I will admit that I have not used another equivalent antenna, so I can only compare this to a copper J-pole, a rollup twin lead, or HT rubber duckie, since those are the only other VHF antennas I have used in the same location, but it is a great antenna.

I can hit repeaters 100 miles away easily with just 10 watts.

Mine is roof mounted, about 30 feet off the ground.
KB9BNY Rating: 2012-09-03
Industructible Wet Noodle Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I put this antenna up around 2004/2005 at about 10 feet. It was good for working local repeaters. I just moved the antenna to my 40 foot tower and I was not overly impressed by the coverage of the antenna. I have to admit I live in a river valley, but I would expect more at 45 feet.

I have to attest to the quality of the antenna. It has survived winters and ice storms and keeps delivering a flat SWR on 2m/450.

Bottom line is its a well built wet noodle.
M0KTY Rating: 2012-01-16
Indestructible Time Owned: more than 12 months.
The GP3 from Comet has been mounted on my house gable end for just over 3 years.
It was purchased new from Martin Lynch at Chertsey UK and came the next day packaged with good protection. The instructions are reasonable, however the antenna is pretty straight forward to put together and the manufacturing of the components are superb. I screwed the three radials in and gave them a slight tighten up with a spanner and mounted the antenna onto an aluminium pole. I wrapped the pl259 connection to the SO239 with self amalgamating tape to keep the moisture out.
The antenna is mounted on a 6’ long Aluminium 16 gauge 32mm dia pole purchased from B&Q which mounts underneath the GP3 stub.
I did not use the offset mounting brackets (2 supplied) which come with the antenna.
This means that the GP3 is in line with the mounting pole and actually sits upon it (so to speak).
I drilled two m10 bolts through the stub and aluminium mounting pole to hold the GP3 in place. The coax feeder travels inside the aluminium pole and I have placed a loop in the end for water displacement.
Within the aluminium pole on the coax feeder I have clipped 6 Nr ferrites from Maplin.
The antenna returned a VSWR of 1.2 on 2m and 1.35 on 70cms with no further alteration from factory.
The antenna has performed brilliantly over the last three years with no repair or maintenance required.
We recently (Jan 2012) had severe gales in the SE uk with wind speeds close to 70mph, I observed the GP3 and although mounted some 4’ above the apex of the house (two story semi) was moving slightly by about 2” at the top with the wind, it remained complete and was none the worse for the experience.
Two neighbours in our street lost TV aerials that night but the GP3 is still standing.
I can not recommend this antenna enough for its simplicity, size and performance.
I would love to take it apart and see how its built but to be honest its so well made you’d probably destroy it getting it apart!
If it eventually fails, I will definitely purchase another COMET product.
The only issue with this installation is that I should squirt some expanding polystyrene foam in the bottom end of the pipe and drill a small drain hole to the side as the pipe resonates in the wind in certain conditions and sounds like a large wind chime!
If you email me (QRZ.com) I can supply a photo of the finished installation. It looks very neat.