Leaderboard

To be perfectly frank, reception at your base/repeater is much more dependent on height than any other factor. While "power" might allow you to talk up to 13 miles, if you can only hear at most 3 miles what's the point? Keep in mind that both mobile and HT radios will have on average 5' antenna height, so their LOS to your base/repeater is the true limiting factor to success. There are several web based propagation map generators that may be used to obtain a visual prediction of your system's performance. I've found it very useful to work "backwards" and generate splatter maps as though the mobile/HT was the primary, and the actual base/repeater was the secondary. In other words, try to answer the question of "how high must my base/repeater antenna be to communicate with mobile/HT units..."