I'm usually stuck in the FL swamp with very little range on my HTs (two miles is worth a high five) but I found myself yesterday atop a seven-story parking structure beachside in the Daytona area with the ever-hated UV-5R and the OEM rubber ducky antenna. I asked myself, "Self, what are the chances of hitting Orlando700 from here?" So I keyed up and launched $18 worth of 5W of RF into the cosmos and damned if I didn't hit it. That's about 30 miles.
Whoever first said "height is might" needs to repost that in bold italics.