Whip-Antenna retention

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Spectre77

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Looking at reconfiguring my radio set-up and hoping for some suggestions. Currently I run a Baofeng UV-5R in my chest rigs internal pocket on the left forward side, but after the last couple of events I've noticed that the arial is getting kinda bent, so I'm looking at replacing it with an extension cable and running a Nagoya 771 antenna on my back insteadi. My only concern with that is that the arial will come out and end up dragging along the ground if I just thread it ito the molle, just wondering if anyone had any suggestions regarding keeping it in place. Obviously, I could just ziptie it, but I was hoping for something more elegant. Only solutions I've found thus far are the TCI MAST and an Emerson reproduction of such, but the former is prohibitively expensive due to coming with radio extenstion parts and the latter no longer in production. 

 
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Just to say, I run my radio on my front-left side and run an extension to the nagoya on my back through the molle, not really had any issue as I got a longer cable than I needed and looped it round and round so that the antenna can't slip out. But that's not what you asked: Morion Thread Works just recently started doing an antenna relocation kit, not on his website yet I don't think, but it's on his facebook page and bonus points for being made in the UK. The only foreseeable issue is the Nagoya is very thin and might not be held in securely enough if you're not looping the wire around like I did (which does look about as ugly as it sounds btw). It's up to you obviously but I have heard really good things about Tactical Comms Solutions whip antennas for Baofengs which would go perfectly with the relocation kit. I plan on getting one soon and a Morion relocator for it.

 
I've always just used tape for this sort of thing.  Why spend money on an engineered 'elegant' solution when the lowest profile solution is tape!

 
Due to geographic limitations , kit-building is pretty much my primary means of engaging in the airsoft hobby, since i'm not legally able to own the guns or play the game., save for the times I ship out to do it overseas  Therefore, it must be sexy when it has the opportunity to be. 

 
Yeah, 'Straya, moving home sucked lol. We've made some good inroads on legalization this last year in some states, so maybe in a few years time I'll be able to actually play here. I actually ended up finding one of the emersons on that sites ebay store, so I've picked that up, just waiting for it all to be delivered now. It's cheap enough that I can try it out, if the build quality is crap I can buy a more expensive one.

SORD is good kit, everything on my DPCU loadout save for the platform itself (Platatac SAC) came from them and I've yet to break any of it, lemme know if you need pics or anything. If your planning on Auscam reccomend you get in as fast as possible though, they're selling out their stock since the army has moved over the AMCU.

 
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Yeah, I follow the Australian Airsoft Council on FB and see they are making big strides. I feel like Australia would have some awesome sites too for milsim etc, huge swathes of diverse land. I was considering DPCU stuff but I think I'm going to go with multicam and/or brown stuff. Might end up with the odd pouch in auscam as SORD have some in their clearance section though.

Let me know how you get on with the emerson pouch, I might pick one up at that price. 

 
MZKaleem said:
Just to say, I run my radio on my front-left side and run an extension to the nagoya on my back through the molle, not really had any issue as I got a longer cable than I needed and looped it round and round so that the antenna can't slip out. But that's not what you asked: Morion Thread Works just recently started doing an antenna relocation kit, not on his website yet I don't think, but it's on his facebook page and bonus points for being made in the UK. The only foreseeable issue is the Nagoya is very thin and might not be held in securely enough if you're not looping the wire around like I did (which does look about as ugly as it sounds btw). It's up to you obviously but I have heard really good things about Tactical Comms Solutions whip antennas for Baofengs which would go perfectly with the relocation kit. I plan on getting one soon and a Morion relocator for it.
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Ive got two of these retention pouches from Morion. Ive tested them with most antennas. Im sure it will firmly hold the Nagoya whip as it was designed with that in mind. It certainly holds my Sandpiper which is similar but with some ribs.

 
Baz JJ said:
Ive got two of these retention pouches from Morion. Ive tested them with most antennas. Im sure it will firmly hold the Nagoya whip as it was designed with that in mind. It certainly holds my Sandpiper which is similar but with some ribs.
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 Oh that's good. it was your posts about them in the Milsim news group (or whichever it is you're usually posting in). I'll probably pick one up when I revamp all my kit. Gotta get ready for Okto 2.0!

 
Remind me nearer the time and I will test the Nagoya in mine before you buy. Bear in mind that Morion builds to order and I think his current leadtime is about two weeks.

 
MZKaleem said:
Let me know how you get on with the emerson pouch, I might pick one up at that price. 
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Got the emerson a few days ago, arial just arrived. It's an inconsistant performer lets just say, In terms of pulling out the retention is pretty solid, pushing out it might as well not be there at all.

 
Ive tried the Emerson and quite a few of the others.

They are copies of real steel ones and so are inadvertently designed for real chunky antennas like the Thales or Harris.

If you want to use a standard Baofeng antenna (not recommended because they're crap) or a radio ham style whip, they wont retain it properly.

The only one Ive found which is pretty universal and handles different size antennas because its not a straight forward copy is the Morion one.

 
Mmm, so I've found. Gotten it to work for me, my loadbearing set-up is a weird frankenrig with a plate carrier that has a chest rig attached to the front, attached by elasticized clips from the back (the intent being to be be able to swap loadout just by changing the chest rig). I found that I can thread the co-axial up through the molle that holds the cord and attach the antenna just above it, it's pretty tight, so the hole is to small for the base to come out of, and the Emerson stops it from pulling any higher. 

 
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