The fars addiction, and some optimal conditions.

[dosw]

Last night I hit a couple of repeaters in testing one of my radios. 

 

The first one is 43.6 miles from where I was located, on Mount Ogden Peak. The report was that I was coming in strong and clear. One person said "You must be pushing some power. What are you using?" But honestly I've hit the same repeater with a handheld Baofeng, using a good external antenna. Of course with that radio the signal report was much less impressive.

On that first one, I think it's pretty clear that I'm mostly lucky to be able to get through; the mountains between where I was and Mount Ogden are not mere foothills, they're the Wasatch Front range. My signal must just be skirting along the west edge of the range, luckily finding its way to Mt Ogden. But communications was very clear; didn't hear any ghosting or skip interference.

The second one is on a mountain on Promontory Point, in the north arm of the Great Salt Lake. The distance covered is 64.5 miles.

For that second report, the person at the other end stated "You're coming in strong. Full quieting, no steam under you. It sounds nice." I've hit that same repeater a little further to the west, where Antelope Island is certainly in the path, but still got through with an easy to understand, slight static report. That Promontory repeater is really perfectly placed for my signal to not need to find its way over any mountains until it gets to within a few miles of the point.

 

My strongest radio, the one I used in this test, is in my old Bronco; my camping / skiing / outdoorsing vehicle. It's the Retevis RA87, 40w GMRS radio, and it's feeding an MXTA26 antenna on a lip mount. Often a lip mount presents a bit of a compromise since it is usually used at the edge of a vehicle, with barely any ground plane on one side. I get lucky with the Bronco because it has a large cowling aft of the hood.

 

Pictures of the install are attached. The wire coming across the top of the radio is just the data cable. And the device above the radio is a brake controller for when I tow a small RV. I've measured the amount of metal below my antenna, and the minimum is about seven inches. In my case that seems to be sufficient to get a good signal all around. I've tested simplex at 15-19 miles, with the vehicle in various orientations and haven't been able to hear any difference.

Ideally the antenna would be on the roof, but I sometimes park the vehicle in the garage, and the antenna would be too tall that way. Nevertheless, I'm pretty happy with 64 miles, although, from the pictures, you can see why it's possible; a straight shot from 5200 feet to 6500 feet, with a valley floor at 4200-4800 feet, between.

 

What interesting propagation have you been able to achieve?

[Socalgmrs]

Very nice reports. I say it to people all the time.  460.xxx is ALL about line of sight.   I’m in a very good spot as well and I do 200miles to the furthest repeater I can reach with a 20w base and a comet 712efc antenna up 30’ off the ground. I’m at 4500’ and the repeater is in the next state at 6000’ and we have nothing in between.  I use $20 ht radios all day at 30-40miles simplex.  I’m called names and called a lier because other people spend big bucks and don’t get 1/4 the distance.  
 

People get upset at me when they choose the spend $500 or more on a 50w radio only to get 5miles in the city.   Line of sight is king.  Watts can not replace line of sight.  
 

 

[dosw]

4 hours ago, WRXP381 said:

Very nice reports. I say it to people all the time.  460.xxx is ALL about line of sight.   I’m in a very good spot as well and I do 200miles to the furthest repeater I can reach with a 20w base and a comet 712efc antenna up 30’ off the ground. I’m at 4500’ and the repeater is in the next state at 6000’ and we have nothing in between.  I use $20 ht radios all day at 30-40miles simplex.  I’m called names and called a lier because other people spend big bucks and don’t get 1/4 the distance.  
 

People get upset at me when they choose the spend $500 or more on a 50w radio only to get 5miles in the city.   Line of sight is king.  Watts can not replace line of sight.  
 

 

Currently nobody's going to accuse me of spending $500 on a radio (though I've probably spent that much on various antennas). I have an RA87 ($155, on sale), an MXT275 ($179 on sale), two Baofeng UV5Gs, and two Midland GXT1000s. Next I'd probably get a TYT TH-9800 Plus since I think I'm ready to test for my Tech license. Overall I've spent less than $1000 on GMRS, including antennas, radios, coax, mounts, SWR meter, connectors, and license.

[Socalgmrs]

22 minutes ago, WRQW589 said:

Currently nobody's going to accuse me of spending $500 on a radio (though I've probably spent that much on various antennas). I have an RA87 ($155, on sale), an MXT275 ($179 on sale), two Baofeng UV5Gs, and two Midland GXT1000s. Next I'd probably get a TYT TH-9800 Plus since I think I'm ready to test for my Tech license. Overall I've spent less than $1000 on GMRS, including antennas, radios, coax, mounts, SWR meter, connectors, and license.

Well what ever you’re doing it seams to be working.   Keep it up.  

[GreggInFL]

5 hours ago, WRXP381 said:

Very nice reports. I say it to people all the time.  460.xxx is ALL about line of sight.   I’m in a very good spot as well and I do 200miles to the furthest repeater I can reach with a 20w base and a comet 712efc antenna up 30’ off the ground. I’m at 4500’ and the repeater is in the next state at 6000’ and we have nothing in between.  I use $20 ht radios all day at 30-40miles simplex.  I’m called names and called a lier because other people spend big bucks and don’t get 1/4 the distance.  

People get upset at me when they choose the spend $500 or more on a 50w radio only to get 5miles in the city.   Line of sight is king.  Watts can not replace line of sight.

I hear ya, brother.  I'm at the opposite end of the LOS spectrum and am dancing the jig when I get five miles on an HT.

[amaff]

Very cool. I'm on the Herriman hills on the opposite side of the valley from you. The Mt Ogden repeater's 50 miles from me, and I've gotten great signal reports on all my 5W HTs. Unfortunately the mountain at lake point / Magna and Antelope Island are between me and Promontory, so I can't often hear that one unless I'm out and about.

[dosw]

48 minutes ago, amaff said:

Very cool. I'm on the Herriman hills on the opposite side of the valley from you. The Mt Ogden repeater's 50 miles from me, and I've gotten great signal reports on all my 5W HTs. Unfortunately the mountain at lake point / Magna and Antelope Island are between me and Promontory, so I can't often hear that one unless I'm out and about.

From your position, you probably can see down into Utah County better than I can. Point of the Mountain is a big obstruction for me, to the south.

[amaff]

1 minute ago, dosw said:

From your position, you probably can see down into Utah County better than I can. Point of the Mountain is a big obstruction for me, to the south.

You'd think, but I'm on the opposite side of the pass there and have all of South Mountain between me and Utah county. If there was an antenna on top of 1 of the big peaks (Box Elder, Timp) I could definitely get to them, but there aren't as far as I'm aware.

[dosw]

By way of an update, I just repeated the test from a slightly different location, 200ft lower, 1 mile west. But this time I used a Baofeng UV-5G connected to a magnetic mount, attached to a window air conditioner, and using a Comet CA2X4SRNMO antenna. This radio puts out 3.5w to 4w depending on its mood. My SWR with this antenna in its current mounting configuration is around 1.1:1, so very good.

 

I tested against the Ogden repeater, which is about 43.3 miles from this location. This time I didn't get through, or at least didn't get a response. I might try again later, because .....

 

Then I tried against the Promontory repeater, which is 63.7 miles from my current location. With a handheld Baofeng UV-5G and a Comet CA2X4SR antenna, I got a signal report back that claimed "Clear, very little static, audio just a little low, but sounds good."

 

 

I never really expected to reach the Promontory repeater at over 63 miles with a handheld, regardless of whether I had a good antenna connected to it, but to my surprise I got through fairly well.

 

Failing to hit the Ogden repeater may be because my elevation is a couple hundred feet lower, and and the Ensign Peak area could be interfering from this elevation. Or it could be that I have more tree interference from this location.

 

Anyway, one more proof that you don't necessarily need a lot of wattage to reach out over a great distance. You need a good antenna and pretty good line of sight. 63.7 miles at 3.5-4w with an external antenna mounted on a window air conditioner.

 

It shouldn't be surprising that I was also able to hit the Ensign Peak Capitol repeater, at 15.6 miles:

[WRYC373]

@dosw I have actually hit that Ogden repeater during inversion from Utah County.

[dosw]

2 minutes ago, WRYC373 said:

@dosw I have actually hit that Ogden repeater during inversion from Utah County.

Holy cow, that's amazing. I would have expected point of the mountain to get in the way.