VHF Antennas

[eppefour]

Anybody with a fast boat having trouble with radio antennas breaking ?

[74Formula233]

Anybody with a fast boat having trouble with radio antennas breaking ?

What are you using for antennas now?

I ask because I don't have a "fast boat", but will be putting a couple 8'ers up on the new top. Not sure if I should put my current Shakespeare 5206 up there, or go with a more rugged, more $$$ one. I'm leaning towards just putting the 5206 up there.....if I have problems with it "holding up" I could always swap it out.

A friend of mine went thru some antenna crap last year with his T-Top, trying some "super-duper" expensive ones and they worked like crap. He went and swapped it back to the 5206 "base-model" and it worked great. Go figure.

[Mist-Rest]

If I was running a go fast. I would install a 4' ss.

[double happiness]

Assuming that mast length (and therefor, effective range) is not a concern I'd look at Digital 528 4' . I've been using the 529 (8') version on my last two boats with outstanding performance.

[eppefour]

Thanks for the input. When I got home tonight I had a reponse from an email to Shakespeare Antennas. They suggested
Either our 5225-XT or our 5400-XT should do the trick.



The 5225 is 8 Ft. That would help with range. neither is expensive. The 5400 is only 4 ft. I would prefer 8. We were talking about running with them locked down. I'm not sure is it is the bounciong or the pressure of the wind bending them back and forth