Blaise

That's actually amazing. I've been wondering all morning how I'd explain to my wife why I was buying a bunch more test equipment to do the same thing! I want to try it across city and inside buildings, too...

There you go! NOW you're attacking the person, instead of the argument. This is an excellent example of how to start a proper fight!

This is interesting to me. (Not the fighting part, that you are really bad at!) As I've mentioned before, the naive "physics" viewpoint is the one I'm approaching this topic from. Physics says that if your signal is currently penetrating x inches of material at y flux (Or maybe I should use variable 'S', in this context?), doubling your power will allow it to pass through x * 1.6 inches of material at y flux. Since it seems like the primary limit on how far a UHF signal will be readable at is how much crap is has to pass through, this seems like it would apply. This of course doesn't take into account other variables I may be unaware of, but I keep bringing it up in hopes someone will clue me to the missing variables...

I will repeat my previous reponse, because I can't seem to find a way to combine quoting: Virtually no one using a handheld radio is in a surrounding that puts them LOS to the horizon. Handhelds happen in woods, in cities, and in buildings. What matters is that if all the clutter would only allow a 2W transmission to penetrate a mile, it would allow a 5W transmission to penetrate 1.6 miles, which is a big deal. Come on now guys, this fight won't work if you just reasonably post your (WRONG) opinions! You have to get some inappropriate emotion into it!

And no one cares about s-units, they *do* care that their handheld can be heard 60% farther away through woods or city! Sure, and I have a solution that works, but only for spherical ducks in a vacuum! Virtually no one using a handheld radio is in a surrounding that puts them LOS to the horizon. Handhelds happen in woods, in cities, and in buildings. What matters is that if all the clutter would only allow a 2W transmission to penetrate a mile, it would allow a 5W transmission to penetrate 1.6 miles, which is a big deal.

I think in modern radio-land, it's, "If it ain't broke, add more features 'til it is."

OK, my turn to start a fight: The difference between 2W and 5W is an increase in receivable transmission range of nearly 60%. That is neither minuscule nor even negligible!

It's not outside the bounds of reason. A number of consumer-electronics boards from China have been found to have stealthy modules on them that scan bluetooth and wifi around them and attempt to exploit any open access to "phone home" with geolocation info and maps of local devices. However, I feel like a niche product like a hand-held radio would be one of the *last* places they'd invest that kind of effort.

Prefaced with "I Am Not A competent Chinese speaker": I spent several months in Bejing and surrounding cities a few years ago, and had a lot of trouble with pronouncing words from their English transliterations, so I asked a lot of people to help me nail individual words down. In doing so, I acquired some slight facility at pronouncing Mandarin words from transliterations. My best take on "Wouxun" would be something like "Wuu - zhuhn" - where the "uu" is kinda part-way between "oo" and "uh". And since it's impossible to get inflections from a transliteration like that, the best bet would be to pronounce it as flatly as possible, with no difference in emphasis between the two syllables...

You can't be serious! If people read what they were responding to, 79% of the content on the internet would just disappear!

This is super-useful! Do you mind if folks distribute it? I'm trying to set up a local group too....

Good grief, you're right! Somebody better tell OffRoaderX...

Yeah, I'm less interested in the DIY aspect than the science of it. I hate just accepting specs without knowing why...

Thank you! This, and the searches it inspired, have provided *much* digestible info...

Anyone have details on this question? It's really the crux of what I was wondering...

To clarify the click-baity question a bit: I recently watched an online debate/put-down session on someone who claimed to be able to make cheap coax just as efficient and low-loss as super-expensive stuff just by doing things like running it in copper tube, wrapping in metal mesh, etc. This seems a bit naive/uninformed, but it does make me ponder questions like: *Is* it possible to decrease losses in existing cable via external means? What is actually going on internally that makes one cable less lossy than another? Is is just thickness of conductors? Geometry tricks? Shielding? Is it possible to build something equivalent to or better than "good" coax to get your signal where it's going in controlled circumstances, like a fixed installation on a roof? Does the answer to this question include the "ladder line" I keep seeing hams post about? Do DIY ideas I've seen like extra-insulated 'cheap' coax, home-made braided wire, or a pipe with insulated grounding cable inside hold water? I have some antenna resources, but they don't go into much detail on this topic beyond 'here's what you do'. Is there an in-depth but still relatively accessible primer on the science of signal propagation in cables, etc? So yeah, just a million questions. I sound really demandy. I'd like fifteen thousands words on my desk by Monday!

You rock, man. Even when I think I know, I still always learn more when I read your write-ups. You should very seriously write a book!

Got it. So we *know* you're no riot at parties...

You must not understand the topic.

From the link: "Nonionizing radiation can cause internal body heating, which can be hazardous to a developing baby." - Which doesn't affect genotype, only phenotype, and only in a developing baby...

What exactly do you think RF does to the gene pool?

And they're apparently out of business, anyway...

Welp, now my brain has exploded. I need to go read more theory...

Oh, wow, so they filter out *ALL* sounds below that line, not just the expected tone? I mean I guess that makes sense to some degree, or you'd hear everyone else's tones on an open channel, but that's a fair chunk of our hearing range missing! I wonder why they don't use higher frequencies. Anything over 28kHz would be literally unhearable, and a frequency that high can transmit a lot of data, if need be...

Doesn't that mean that any sounds in that range that we *intend* be transmitted (like "Hey Mike, listen to the sound this machine is making. Does that mean it's going to explode?) will also be filtered out of transmission, if they happen to be within whatever range the radio electronics is unable to discriminate between of the CTCSS tone?