Antenna Quality vs Transceiver Wattage

[WRXD746]

Background:  I've been told that antenna quality means more than transceiver wattage.

Situation:  I live in the hills of middle Tennessee where LOS is minimal and repeaters are scarce.  I also work in the Birmingham, AL, area where the situation is the same. Actually, there are more repeaters there but LOS is still an issue coupled with the density of trees and buildings so reaching those repeaters is a pain.

Current Antenna:  Motorola NMO mounted on 6" aluminum disk for ground plane attached to roof rail on top of my SUV.

Question:  What antenna gives the best performance for my situation and how does transceiver wattage play a part in making sure that antenna actually reaches the repeaters for BVLOS communications?  (opinions don't mean much to me as I deal in actual verifiable data everyday and value that more than anything else)

Thanks in advance.

[SteveShannon]

45 minutes ago, WRUE951 said:

If it can get that deer with the 120 wat flashlight and not see a shadow with the 100 Watt, guess what my preference will be..  

Yeah, but that’s a fictional scenario that doesn’t follow reality.  If you can see a deer with 120 watts you can see it with 100 watts, provided everything else is equal. But you won’t see contrast quite as clearly.
Power matters, but with UHF the most common limitation to range isn’t power, but rather the ability to achieve “RF visibility” between two radios. Adding power will only get you so far on UHF.  

[WRUE951]

1 hour ago, SteveShannon said:

Yeah, but that’s a fictional scenario that doesn’t follow reality.  If you can see a deer with 120 watts you can see it with 100 watts, provided everything else is equal. But you won’t see contrast quite as clearly.
Power matters, but with UHF the most common limitation to range isn’t power, but rather the ability to achieve “RF visibility” between two radios. Adding power will only get you so far on UHF.  

 

1 hour ago, SteveShannon said:

Yeah, but that’s a fictional scenario that doesn’t follow reality.  If you can see a deer with 120 watts you can see it with 100 watts, provided everything else is equal. But you won’t see contrast quite as clearly.
Power matters, but with UHF the most common limitation to range isn’t power, but rather the ability to achieve “RF visibility” between two radios. Adding power will only get you so far on UHF.  

Theory works both ways my friend  

[SteveShannon]

3 minutes ago, WRUE951 said:

 

Theory works both ways my friend  

That’s right, but your fictional scenario doesn’t even follow theory. 

[HHD1]

On 10/26/2025 at 3:23 PM, WRYZ926 said:

Increasing the ground plane from 6 inches to 12 inches will help

I was gonna mention something similar, as it's my understanding that 12" diameter is the minimum you want for GMRS.

[WRUE951]

1 hour ago, SteveShannon said:

That’s right, but your fictional scenario doesn’t even follow theory. 

I've talked about this before here in regards to real life scenarios debunking the power doesn't matter theory.   No fiction,, all fact..  Power does matter.  I've proven that...   You can't convince me different..   You be wasting your time..  

[NCJeb]

Here’s my quick $0.02:

In the mountains of western NC, documentably a 1/4 whip is better than anything with higher gain. I say that because I am currently experimenting with multiple antenna types, and thus far in each test, the 1/4 wave whip is working best (best signal reports, and in some cases the only one working to break repeater squelch at all). With the OP being in Middle Tennessee, and having slightly flatter, but generally similar terrain to what I’m experiencing, that would be my overall personal recommendation. It really does seem to be related to the “high gain is bad in the mountains“ anecdotal wisdom.

 

That said, all of the antenna types I’m trying are all whips of varying lengths, so I can’t speak to the ghost/stealth style antenna, because I don’t have one to try as yet.

[WRTC928]

4 hours ago, WRUE951 said:

everyone that says that extra power does not help a bit is smoking Hunters stash..   That's all I got to say.

I'm not going to say it doesn't make any difference, because I've personally seen times when it has, but I've never seen it take a situation from no signal to a good signal. I've gone from no signal to a weak signal or from a crappy signal to a pretty good signal by increasing the power, so it's something I like to have as an option, but if I had to choose between more power and a better/higher antenna, I'd choose the antenna.

[WRUE951]

31 minutes ago, WRTC928 said:

I'm not going to say it doesn't make any difference, because I've personally seen times when it has, but I've never seen it take a situation from no signal to a good signal. I've gone from no signal to a weak signal or from a crappy signal to a pretty good signal by increasing the power, so it's something I like to have as an option, but if I had to choose between more power and a better/higher antenna, I'd choose the antenna.

and hence, the better antenna will improve the high power range --  its all relevant to the square root of the power ratio. This calculation suggest a theoretical range increase approx. 1.5 times (sqrt(45/20)=1.5) when moving from 20W to 45W.   So what I'm saying most of you bucks are missing, higher power over longer range defiantly help..  And as Steve suggest, elevation angles trees etc. equates into the formula.  But remember it's all relative  

[TNFrank]

7 hours ago, Lscott said:

I didn't realize what was inhabiting houses could affect RF propagation so much.  You have any studies on the topic? 

I'm just taking Randy's(OffRoaderX)word on it. LOL.

[SteveShannon]

1 hour ago, WRUE951 said:

I've talked about this before here in regards to real life scenarios debunking the power doesn't matter theory.   No fiction,, all fact..  Power does matter.  I've proven that...   You can't convince me different..   You be wasting your time..  

As I said, power matters. The problem I see (real observations as well as theory) relatively small amounts make almost no difference. For instance, going from 5 watts to 8 watts won’t make much of a difference for most people. It might make the difference if vegetation is attenuating the signal but for normal uhf there will be no difference in range. 

[WRUE951]

43 minutes ago, SteveShannon said:

As I said, power matters. The problem I see (real observations as well as theory) relatively small amounts make almost no difference. For instance, going from 5 watts to 8 watts won’t make much of a difference for most people. It might make the difference if vegetation is attenuating the signal but for normal uhf there will be no difference in range. 

what started this argument is 20W to 40W

[SteveShannon]

43 minutes ago, WRUE951 said:

what started this argument is 20W to 40W

Still only half of an S level.

[WRUE951]

5 minutes ago, SteveShannon said:

Still only half of an S level.

that's a lot when you throw in inflation.     

[WRXD746]

3 hours ago, NCJeb said:

Here’s my quick $0.02:

In the mountains of western NC, documentably a 1/4 whip is better than anything with higher gain. I say that because I am currently experimenting with multiple antenna types, and thus far in each test, the 1/4 wave whip is working best (best signal reports, and in some cases the only one working to break repeater squelch at all). With the OP being in Middle Tennessee, and having slightly flatter, but generally similar terrain to what I’m experiencing, that would be my overall personal recommendation. It really does seem to be related to the “high gain is bad in the mountains“ anecdotal wisdom.

 

That said, all of the antenna types I’m trying are all whips of varying lengths, so I can’t speak to the ghost/stealth style antenna, because I don’t have one to try as yet.

From what I’ve read, higher gain has a flatter “donut” of radiation. It’ll get farther but not nearly as high. Whereas, let’s say 3dB gain, is a happy compromise between horizontal and vertical “reach”.  When I’m out west, everyone has 6dB gain antennas because the prairies are flat. They can reach distances I can’t with 3, all else being equal.  
 

To bring back an earlier statement in this thread, I did some asking around and it seems that 5/8 wave is the general consensus although a few POC’s said they have 1/4 wave antennas for specific regions/situations. They didn’t elaborate on what those were. 

[WRXD746]

4 hours ago, HHD1 said:

I was gonna mention something similar, as it's my understanding that 12" diameter is the minimum you want for GMRS.

I went with 6” because of where and how I mounted the antenna. A full 12” would be ideal but it would have extended out and overhung the side of my 4Runner - which was not desirable. 
 

I’m working on a new set of cross rails and I’ve designed them to accommodate a full 12” mounted along the centerline of the vehicle. 

[HHD1]

2 hours ago, WRXD746 said:

I went with 6” because of where and how I mounted the antenna. A full 12” would be ideal but it would have extended out and overhung the side of my 4Runner - which was not desirable. 
 

I’m working on a new set of cross rails and I’ve designed them to accommodate a full 12” mounted along the centerline of the vehicle. 

Nice!!!!

[GreggInFL]

On 10/29/2025 at 9:06 AM, Lscott said:

I didn't realize what was inhabiting houses could affect RF propagation so much.  You have any studies on the topic? 

If I tilt back my Barco lounger I can set my HT on my stomach and the antenna will be perfectly vertical which, as all scientists know, is ideal. If I lost 20 pounds it would fall off and be worthless as a transceiver. In this study n=1 so the p statistic will be poor. That's all I got.

[WRTC928]

18 hours ago, WRUE951 said:

So what I'm saying most of you bucks are missing, higher power over longer range defiantly help..  And as Steve suggest, elevation angles trees etc. equates into the formula.  But remember it's all relative  

No, I'm not missing that. As I said, I've seen it help sometimes. IME, it's fairly hard to predict when it will improve my signal, though, which is why I like to have a radio with the option for more power, should I choose to use it. Also IME, the results obtained by changing the antenna (better angle, more gain, more elevation, etc.) are more predictable, which is why changing the antenna is my go-to solution for a poor signal.

[GreggInFL]

On 10/26/2025 at 3:15 PM, WRXD746 said:

Ok. This is starting to make a little more sense. And I’m assuming that “ht” is a handheld radio. If so, then yes, hooking up to my external antenna made a big difference even across fields where the normal antenna would suck inside a vehicle. 
 

Just to clarify what you’re telling me, a 20W radio with a good antenna could expect to get decent to good reception in areas like ours as well as expect to ping the repeaters that are BVLOS? Correct?  Is there an average distance radius that you could put on that?

(I think the HT acronym stands for "handheld transceiver.")

I'm in a similar setting. I use a 25W mobile with a 3.5 gain mag mount antenna. Whether it's mounted in/on the vehicle or placed in a closet in my house (16" pie pan ground plane) I can hit a repeater probably 20 miles away -- not because I have great equipment but because the repeater antenna is rumored to be at 400' in flat terrain. The repeater footprint is a 35 mile radius. Mobil to mobile is probably 5 - 20 miles depending on LOS.

For reasons discussed, more power is better but it's not linear, e.g. you don't get twice the result going from 25 to 50 watts. That's why my mobile set up is 25W with a mag mount; I'm not drilling any holes and can easily move everything inside or to another vehicle.

EEs here can tell you what the exponent is. I never took that class.

[WRTC928]

16 hours ago, WRXD746 said:

From what I’ve read, higher gain has a flatter “donut” of radiation. It’ll get farther but not nearly as high. Whereas, let’s say 3dB gain, is a happy compromise between horizontal and vertical “reach”.  When I’m out west, everyone has 6dB gain antennas because the prairies are flat. They can reach distances I can’t with 3, all else being equal. 

A number of people have said at various times in this forum that in the mountains a high-gain antenna can send a signal over the heads of people in the valleys, whereas a lower-gain antenna will reach the valleys just fine. I haven't personally experienced it, because the Oklahoma-Texas region has lots of rolling hills, but few true mountains; however, it does match the theory. If I traveled a lot to areas with significantly different terrain, I might have a couple of different antennas I could swap according to what conditions I expected. 

[WRUE951]

16 hours ago, WRXD746 said:

From what I’ve read, higher gain has a flatter “donut” of radiation. It’ll get farther but not nearly as high. Whereas, let’s say 3dB gain, is a happy compromise between horizontal and vertical “reach”.  When I’m out west, everyone has 6dB gain antennas because the prairies are flat. They can reach distances I can’t with 3, all else being equal.  
 

To bring back an earlier statement in this thread, I did some asking around and it seems that 5/8 wave is the general consensus although a few POC’s said they have 1/4 wave antennas for specific regions/situations. They didn’t elaborate on what those were. 

you'll get better performance with the 5/8 antenna because of higher gain.  The 1/2 antenna will be more omnidirectional and won't require as much impedance matching hardware.

[WRUE951]

38 minutes ago, WRTC928 said:

No, I'm not missing that. As I said, I've seen it help sometimes. IME, it's fairly hard to predict when it will improve my signal, though, which is why I like to have a radio with the option for more power, should I choose to use it. Also IME, the results obtained by changing the antenna (better angle, more gain, more elevation, etc.) are more predictable, which is why changing the antenna is my go-to solution for a poor signal.

Most mobile & HT radios have a 'Low High' setting, some Low, Med High..  Yes, a high will eat up more juice, pretty much why I run my HT's in low mode unless I need to 'talk out'. My mobile???  I leave it in high, no concern with power consumption..   

[SteveShannon]

16 hours ago, WRUE951 said:

what started this argument is 20W to 40W

Our 2 meter repeater is a Yaesu DR-1X.  Although it’s capable of 50 watts, we leave it set to 20 watts so we can get 100% duty cycle per the manufacturer’s specifications.  We regularly get people at 80 miles who come in loud and clear.  It’s the repeater that our member was talking to from Bozeman (80 miles)  using the stock antenna on his handheld 5 watt radio three weeks ago.  As I described in my other post, after the weekly net he asked if anybody would hang around an give him signal reports when he turned his radio to its lowest setting.  He turned it all the way down to 50 milliwatts, 1/20th of a watt, still using the stock handheld antenna.  Although the signal was definitely weaker, we could still easily hear him and make out what he was saying.  To him we were still loud and clear.

Obviously, a huge power increase makes a difference, but doubling power, will not make a huge difference.  That’s 3 dB, a factor of 2.  My friend reduced his power by 20 dB, a factor of 100 and could still be heard. To put it into S units, that’s more than three full S units.

So, with only 20 watts out of our repeater how can it be heard so well at such a distance and more importantly how can it pick up transmissions that are 20 dB down?  Simple, its antenna is a phased array of four folded dipoles, with a gain of about 9 dBi, similar to this, with the gain pointed slightly downward (maybe a couple degrees?, I’m guessing) by the phasing. Even more importantly it’s mounted on a twenty foot tower on a mountain peak, above the tree line, at about 9760 feet elevation. 

[GreggInFL]

5 minutes ago, SteveShannon said:

Our 2 meter repeater is a Yaesu DR-1X.  Although it’s capable of 50 watts, we leave it set to 20 watts so we can get 100% duty cycle per the manufacturer’s specifications.  We regularly get people at 80 miles who come in loud and clear.  It’s the repeater that our member was talking to from Bozeman (80 miles)  using the stock antenna on his handheld 5 watt radio three weeks ago.  As I described in my other post, after the weekly net he asked if anybody would hang around an give him signal reports when he turned his radio to its lowest setting.  He turned it all the way down to 50 milliwatts, 1/20th of a watt, still using the stock handheld antenna.  Although the signal was definitely weaker, we could still easily hear him and make out what he was saying.  To him we were still loud and clear.

Obviously, a huge power increase makes a difference, but doubling power, will not make a huge difference.  That’s 3 dB, a factor of 2.  My friend reduced his power by 20 dB, a factor of 100 and could still be heard. To put it into S units, that’s more than three full S units.

So, with only 20 watts out of our repeater how can it be heard so well at such a distance and more importantly how can it pick up transmissions that are 20 dB down?  Simple, its antenna is a phased array of four folded dipoles, with a gain of about 9 dBi, similar to this, with the gain pointed slightly downward (maybe a couple degrees?, I’m guessing) by the phasing. Even more importantly it’s mounted on a twenty foot tower on a mountain peak, above the tree line, at about 9760 feet elevation. 

Wow. That does not look like my front yard.

[WRUE951]

7 minutes ago, SteveShannon said:

Our 2 meter repeater is a Yaesu DR-1X.  Although it’s capable of 50 watts, we leave it set to 20 watts so we can get 100% duty cycle per the manufacturer’s specifications.  We regularly get people at 80 miles who come in loud and clear.  It’s the repeater that our member was talking to from Bozeman (80 miles)  using the stock antenna on his handheld 5 watt radio three weeks ago.  As I described in my other post, after the weekly net he asked if anybody would hang around an give him signal reports when he turned his radio to its lowest setting.  He turned it all the way down to 50 milliwatts, 1/20th of a watt, still using the stock handheld antenna.  Although the signal was definitely weaker, we could still easily hear him and make out what he was saying.  To him we were still loud and clear.

Obviously, a huge power increase makes a difference, but doubling power, will not make a huge difference.  That’s 3 dB, a factor of 2.  My friend reduced his power by 20 dB, a factor of 100 and could still be heard. To put it into S units, that’s more than three full S units.

So, with only 20 watts out of our repeater how can it be heard so well at such a distance and more importantly how can it pick up transmissions that are 20 dB down?  Simple, its antenna is a phased array of four folded dipoles, with a gain of about 9 dBi, similar to this, with the gain pointed slightly downward (maybe a couple degrees?, I’m guessing) by the phasing. Even more importantly it’s mounted on a twenty foot tower on a mountain peak, above the tree line, at about 9760 feet elevation. 

Earth grabbing Heaven..   Awesome site, my mouth is  drueling