I am looking for recommendations for a dual band antenna that will serve tw
o separate radios. The reason that I want to use a single antenna is that
I have a limited number of mounting points for antennas. At present it wil
l be hard for SWMBO; as in Rumpole's spouse, She Who Must Be Obeyed; to tol
erate the use of both our home's gable ends and the chimney being used to s
upport antennas. I am planning to replace my Diamond X-30 with a triband v
ertical for Six, Two, and .7 Meters. The chimney will then support a rotor
aimed Two and .7 Meter beam. The second gable end will support the Two me
ter / Seventy Centimeter dual band vertical that I am asking for help in se
lecting.

One radio will be a two meter packet node which will be used as a Winlink R
adio Message Server. The other radio will be a UHF D-STAR hotspot. I am w
illing to pay what is needed to to get the best antenna for this applicatio
n but I don't want to waste money ineffectively. So the two meter radio wi
ll be in the 144 MHz portion of the band and I don't yet actually know were
the D-STAR hotspot will be run. I have a DCI filter and diplexer to keep
the two radios from actually knowing of each others existence. Since a hot
spot is not supposed to be a terribly wide area installation I would imagin
e that I do not want an extremely high gain antenna but I am perfectly open
to be reeducated on that. The difficulty is that I would guess that the R
adio Message Server / Packet would benefit from as much horizontal gain as
can be achieved. I have a home brewed collinear two meter J-Pole that has
been a good performer on two meters and presents a low SWR on 440 MHz. I h
ave yet to master antenna modeling but I would imagine; given all the warni
ngs I have read on line; that it has poor radiation pattern on UHF. Is it
likely to be too poor a performer for a hot spot on UHF?

I really am asking because I want to know. I am not looking for encouragem
ent to do something that will be ineffective. Thank you in advance for any
help you may be willing to offer.

--
Tom Horne W3TDH