marcspaz

Oh, I'm not fighting, just having a discussion. Thats probably why it looks like I'm bad at fighting. LoL I'm not disputing your technical point that more power equals more penetration or improved range. That is just matter of fact. My contention is more a matter of the significance of the improvement. That said, just to be friendly and see if you are correct or not, I am 100% willing to go in the woods behind my house with a radio and a field strength metere to conduct an actual measured test of the situation you are describing. Now, if you just want to have an exercise in rhetoric rather than discover usable and actionable information, then I'm not goto do the test. @everyone... if anyone wants me to do the test, I will, but I have no interest in doing it for my own sake. So, if anyone wants it, just let me know.

Unfortunately, I have found that in real-world applications, what you are claiming doesn't happen. I spend a tremendous amount of time in the woods while offloading, assisting the Marine Corps Community Services with running events, and camping. Most of my friends and peers have 5w handheld radios for the stuff we do. I have an 8w handheld. We have never had a situation where we crossed a threshold to where I couldn't hear them, but they could hear me. I have all the proper tools and equipment to test this. I'd be happy to go out into the woods tomorrow and do real measurements and tell you what the scientifically measured truth is, if you're interested... but I don't think you are going to like the answer.

@KAF6045 It takes 6dB to increase 1 S-unit... going from 2 watts to 8 watts... but your point is still very valid. 2w compared to 5w, its almost no change with regard to range or readability. @Blaise As far as voice communications goes, I would absolutely say it is negligible, but that's only because at almost midnight I can't readily think of a word that represents something less than negligible.

The only thing I would add to what Steve mentioned is that 50 watts will help overcome antenna cable losses while transmitting. If you are barely receiving a signal from someone using 20w and you're feeding a coax that reduces your 4w-5w handheld signal down to 1.5w or less into the antenna... that other station isn't going to hear you. So, more power and a good antenna would be a good choice.

Yeah man, no doubt. I worked a station outside of Moscow at 1:00 AM ET on 20m. Worked South Africa at 8:30 PM on 10m. Very happy with that.

Very cool! That's a good number of countries. I was being lazy one night on the radio in VA, tuning up my audio. I didn't feel like doing the extra work of running the dummy load, so I turned my power all the way down, which is 0.4w. While I was doing my audio testing, I was using my call sign and saying things to make the adjustments. When I let the key up, I guy from Ohio came back to me saying he had a great copy on me and the audio sounded really good. He asked what mic I was using... ended up chatting for about 10 minutes, to Ohio, on 0.4w. It was mind-blowing.

I have been keeping a logbook of people that I speak to on the radio. I have been licensed for 2 decades, but used HF very infrequently up until the COVID19 pandemic started. Starting in 2019 to now, it has been a fun 3 years since I have started using HF regularly. My favorite part is the new friends and acquaintances I have met around the world. Two good friends... Lauro Zanoli in Italy and Helio De Olivera in Brazil. My acquaintances Janez and Slovko Celarc in Slovenia, Ross Biggar in New Zealand, Javier Salazar in Costa Rica, Chris Taylor in Wales, just to name a few. Amateur Radio in the US is a dying field. I wanted to share this information to encourage more people... younger people to give the radio a try. Maybe get into it as a hobby, using it as a tool for community service, or even just to make a few new friends. Using HF radio I have spoken to people in every state in the US and on every continent around the globe. This is a list of countries and distant US states/territories where I have chatted with people on the radio... some from home, some while driving to work. A total of 97 distant lands and all of the US. Hopefully someone finds it interesting. Alaska Anguilla Antigua and Barbuda Argentina Aruba Australia Austria Azores Bahamas Barbados Belarus Belgium Belize Bermuda Bonaire Bosnia and Herzegovina Brazil Bulgaria Canada Canary Islands Cape Verde Cayman Islands Ceuta and Melilla Chile Colombia Costa Rica Croatia Cuba Curacao Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Dominican Republic Ecuador England Estonia Finland France French Guiana Germany Greece Guadeloupe Guyana Haiti Hawaii Honduras Hungary Ireland Israel Italy Jamaica Japan Latvia Lithuania Luxembourg Madeira Island Malta Martinique Mexico Montserrat Morocco Netherlands New Caledonia New Zealand Northern Ireland Panama Paraguay Poland Portugal Puerto Rico Romania Russia San Marino Sardinia Scotland Serbia Slovak Republic Slovenia South Africa South Cook Islands Spain St Helena Island St Kitts and Nevis St Lucia St Martin St. Maarten Suriname Svalbard Sweden Switzerland Trinidad and Tobago Turks and Caicos Islands Ukraine United States Uruguay US Virgin Islands Venezuela Wales

I'll try to summarize what came out of the discussion... Some people think that repeaters need to ID. Some people think there is a loophole somewhere that can be leveraged. Almost everyone agrees that regardless of the answer, the FCC appears to not care. Everyone is continuing to do whatever they feel like because it seems (unless you interfere with Public Safety) there are no repercussions, regardless of what the answer really is.

@KAF6045 I just assumes he was really excited! LOL

@Tramposo That is awesome!!! That is a very popular area for visitors and locals to spend time doing outdoors activities. Great to see its up and running. My daughter lives in Preston, so I end up visiting just about every month. I have been looking to put up a repeater in the general area, to help cover some of the more rural locations to the north and east (toward RI) with no cell coverage. I am thinking about asking the people who own Foxwoods if I can put one up on the hotel. I have been testing different locations and full coverage is actually pretty tough up there. We'll see how it goes.

I'm not sure where you read that I was trying to tell anyone what they can talk about. I said I was having trouble understanding why the conversation about the FCC rule being vague was still continuing, when they are actually very clearly defined... and then I provided and example/explanation of my opinion. I didn't say anything about anyone else, but rather confusion or lack of understanding on my part... but you're right... I don't know what I was thinking. I forgot you're the only one allowed to have an opinion. Thanks for the reminder.

I've walked a mile in your shoes. LOL

No need to be an ass about it. It's been asked and answered so many times that it's bewildering that it's still being discussed. And... you're wrong. It doesn't apply to every base station... not every base station only has 15 watts and designed to only talk to other 15 watt base stations. But, hey... by all means... knock yourself out.

I'm not sure why this is still going on, but the FCC is extremely specific. There is nothing vague about it. Per ther FCC rules, a Fixed Service is radio communication service between specified fixed points; and a Fixed Station is a station in the fixed service. It's a station in the service of radio communication between specified fixed points or between a specified fixed point and one or more other fixed points. It doesn't matter what the radio itself was originally designed to do (mobile, base, portable, etc.) The only thing that matters is its actual executed use.

I like to at least know the numbers. That way I can say "John 592, are you listening? " because if I just call John, 5 people might try to reply. It's like a little kid calling out "dad" in the toy store. Damn near every guy is going to see who's calling them. LoL

On 10m, I have talked to people in Asia, as well as several dozen countries outside of North America. There is basically only 2 years out of every 11 year cycle, where 10m is not all that good for long distance.

Mobile or base, you are likely going to need at least 2 radios (possibly 3), a diplexer and best case, 3 antennas, if not more. As far as antennas go, I am not aware of any antenna that 'works' on 2m, MURS, 1.25m, 70cm and FRS/GMRS. Definitely none that cover all that AND HF. My opinion, regardless of what base antenna and tuner combo you use, you're not getting a single antenna to 'work' on all of those bands. I've tried. With decades of experience and a massive network of smart people, it's just never happened. Sure, a tuner will make the radio happy, but it will be like a dummy load... it's not going to radiate.

That image has a great looking setup! Ill check out the ZIP when I get home.

Honestly, I don't know if it's just my antennas, but I have a CA-2x4SR both in NMO and UHF style and they both kinda suck. The SWR is fine everywhere except on 462 MHz frequencies. But they just don't seem to perform well compared to some of my other antennas. Like, to the point that I don't use either of the anymore. At one point, they were my favorite, for reference.

Over the past few years, I have tried just about every commonly discussed antenna available in the US. I literally have 8 or 10 antennas sitting in my office and garage right now, and 4 more in/on the truck. Anecdotal I know, but the absolute best antenna I have used for 2m/70cm/GMRS is the Diamond NR-7900a. It's rated for 300w/250w and, 3.7/6.4 gain. Real-world, it far out-performs my dedicated MXTA26 GMRS antenna, which is the best dedicated GMRS antenna I have used. Not only is the range the best and able to handle the most power, the SWR on 146.52 is 1:1, on 446 it's 1.3:1, on 462 it's 1.6:1, and on 467 it's 1.5:1. The Diamond NR-770 is a close second. The power ratings are a little lower at 200w/200w, the gain is a little lower at 3.0/5.5, and the SWR is the same everywhere but 462, where it's a little higher... 2:1. It's 1.4:1 on 146, 1.1:1 on 446, and 1.5:1 on 467 (which is where I spend most of my time). The slight sacrifice in performance benefits does yield a smaller, thinner, lighter antenna that is more discrete. However, I still prefer to use the NR-7900.

I have a friend who retired from the industry a few years ago. Thankfully he got everything sorted for me. Thank you! I appreciate it. I am using the ASTRO 25 Mobile CPS software and a USB cable to program the radios. It's a lot easier than I originally expected. Between the plain english field titles and the help file, I have been able to figure everything out.

@Sshannon Good catch! I didn't think to look for the operator's name.

They definitely did not have the authority to do that. In the same way only the FAA regulates airspace over the US, the rules of the airwaves are regulated exclusively by the FCC under authority granted by Congress. The rules say that no one owns any frequency, and all operators work on the premise of first come, first serve. There is nothing that says you can't have a conversation in-between conversations, and it's actually pretty common, as long as no one is causing harmful interference and everyone must yield to emergency traffic. I love having that conversation with the idiots that tell me to "get off their frequency". LOL

I'm assuming its a scam. To be frank, I don't trust any text, emails or phone calls, and 100% of "official" letters I have received from the IRS, Social Security Administration, and most other agencies looking for payment or ID turned out to be fake. Scammers pull info out of public database to do targeted emails, hoping you call the number on the letter and give them you info and credit card information, instead of calling the public number of the official government site. Along with still being active in the database, there is nothing listed in the administration section. I would also recommend checking it occasionally and just carry on.

Not really. I would be more prone to put money into an antenna first. However, there are some radios that just hear better than others, so you could buy a radio with a better receiver. Some receivers can have their sensitivity increased/tuned. There are also receive pre-amps. And then, of course assuming the antenna and radio are at least working as designed, there is no replacement for elevation. A cheap vertical dipole at 10,000 feet will work better at receiving weak and distant signals, more so than the finest high gain directional antenna only 20 or 30 feet off the ground.