[Icom] T81 antenna

[John Geiger]

Been following the thread on the icom T81 antennas. 
What is your opinion of the 2 meter capabilities of
the stock T81A antenna?  

I ask because I used to have one, and used it mainly
for bicycle mobile work going back and forth to
work-no mobile antenna, just held the HT up to my
mouth and talked on it.  The local group (one in
particular) was always bitching about my signal-even
at 5 watts.  I did have a yaesu VX150 for a little
while, and it seemed to do good into the repeater-even
at 2 watts.  

I was going to get a T2H since it did 6 watts output,
and I figured that would be even better.  However, I
kind of accidently won a 2 meter HT package from a
different company on ebay, and that HT will only put
out 3 watts at max power.  I am kind of scared that
this was a big mistake-I won't be able to get into the
repeater, etc.  

is the antenna on the T81 really that bad?  Will a
single band HT antenna outperform it?  Will I probably
be OK with 3 watts and a single band rubber duck
antenna vs. 5 watts and the quad band antenna?

What are others experiences with the 2 meter side of
the T81 antenna?  SOme made it sound like icom cut
down performance of this antenna to limit intermod-is
that probably true?

73s John NE0P



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