Hi Bob,

Thanks a lot for your long and detailed reply...

I have actually tried a J-Stick on 70cms attached to the top of the
windscreen and it does seem
to work better than the standard helical on the rig mounted "in the clutter"
at the centre of the handlebars.
However, it was a home-brew lash up and I am not sure if it was optimised,
although seemed to SWR well.

Naturally 2M would seem the obvious choice, but we get a lot of QRM amongst
towns especially, and
have defaulted to the quieter 70cms band. That said we seem to manage 2 or 3
miles OK, but we tour
and sometimes get separated by several miles, or deliberately part for some
reason, and it's this that
we would like to cater for.

Repeaters are not really an option as frequently we are in foreign parts and
don't have the data / coverage maps to decide which would be the best
repeater or the time to stop and
work it all out and program it all in to the rig - Simplex with memories
programmed to low or high power
is the desired way forward. It doesn't need to be dual band - perhaps an
elevated 2M commercial
halfwave aerial, and use CTCSS or DCS to cut out the QRM, is the way
forward.
SSB is not an option with the kit we have and probably too fiddly to use
when mobile.

Thanks again for the tips and info,

Nick