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Reviews For: Comet SH-95 HT antenna 2m 70cm 23cm

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

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Review Summary For : Comet SH-95 HT antenna 2m 70cm 23cm
Reviews: 1MSRP: Street price 29 to 40
Description:
SH-95

2M/70cm/1200MHz TriBand HT Antenna
Excellent 100-1200MHz Wideband Receive
Gain & Wave:
146MHz 1.5dBi ¼ wave
446MHz 2.15dBi ½ wave
1200MHz 5.5dBi 5/8 wave x 2
Max Power: 10 watts
Length: 14.5”
Connector: BNC
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.cometantenna.com/products.php?CatID=1&famID=1&childID=2
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
0014
N3ZH Rating: 2007-02-28
Improvement of stock rubber duck Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I've only owned the antenna for a few days.
I purchased it from hamcity.com for $29.

What attracted me to this antenna is the wideband receive from 100MHz to 1GHz.

The Comet BNC-24 boasts a little more gain, but it is not broadband receive.

From my home, I am able to talk through a local repeater a few miles away on 0.5 watt low power on my IC-91AD. I was told I sounded better after increasing power to 5.0 watts. Unfortunately my radio only has these two power levels.

With the factory rubber duck antenna I could not clearly hear my local weather station, but now it is load and clear.

I can also hear a local police repeater on VHF about 10 miles away with improved clarity compared to the factory antenna.

This antenna is not available with SMA.
I use a SMA to BNC adapter.

For HF - I found that I could hear very few short wave stations with the factory antenna, and no stations at all with this Comet antenna. So, for HF - the factory antenna is superior - yet the factory antenna is very disappointing. To get good HF I connect the handheld IC-91AD to my low cost hustler vertical ground mounted antenna.

I can't pick up anything at frequencies above 70cm because it all seems to be local government P25 which my radio can't decode and it just sounds like unusual noise. My radio can not TX nor RX at 23cm, so I can not comment on the antennas performance at 23cm/1.2Ghz.

My radio can receive TV audio.
TV Ch 1 49.750Mhz is loud (what is TV channel 1?)
TV Ch 4 71.750Mhz to Ch 54 715.75 Mhz is good.
TV Ch 13 215.750Mhz is a TV station from Baltimore that I didn't receive well, and now it is clear.
So, I can notice TV reception is better.

The antenna is a little more the 2x the length of the factory antenna, and the top 10+ inches seems to wobble easily. Maybe this is a plus to avoid accidental damage? Not sure. The first 4 inches of the antenna is rigid - maybe that portion contains coils?

The specs for Comet's BNC24 has a little better gain on both 2m and 70cm. I do not own a BNC24. It might be a better choice if you do not care about wide band receive.

With the newer HT radios with broad receive like my Icom 91-AD, the Sh-95 shows improvement for TV audio, police (who have not upgraded to P25), air band, and the amateur 2m & 70cm band. It also has the 23cm amateur band if someday this becomes available in HT radios.

2m, 70cm, and 23cm are the 3 bands Icom is deploying D-Star digital technology. Personally, I think this is the future of amateur radio due to :
1. lower power needed & longer range achieved (remember what digital and FEC did for cell phones. No more 5 watt FM bag phones - now we have 0.5 watt tiny digitaL Star-Trek sized communicators)
2. Simultaneous data with voice. No TNC required. Substantial data rates at 23cm.
3. Call sign constantly digitally XMTed - no need to repeat call sign every 10 minutes.
4. Superior Echolink type capabilities - can call an individual radio by its call-sign anywhere in the world if it has XMTed recently to any D-Star repeater.

Personally, I wouldn't purchase an expensive VHF/UHF antenna which doesn't cover 2m, 70cm, and 23cm D-star supported amateur bands. However, HT antennas are not expensive.

I wish the Amateur community where I live agreed with me. At this time there are no D-Star repeaters here.

Bottom Line for the SH-95:
1. No HF reception at all.
2. Only available with BNC.
3. Good 100Mhz to 1.2Ghz broadband receive (though I can't vouch for anything above 70cm, except for TV audio)
4. Good specs for XMT on 2m, 70cm, and 23cm.
5. Flexible to avoid breaking
6. Longer than stock

Regards
N3ZH