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Almost 3.5 miles line of sight - frs or GMRS?

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prcguy

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I'm working on a radio project this week where a VHF handheld inside a building can't communicate with another outside 1/4 mile away. For this temporary job we had to use a 25w base station with a base antenna in the building but close to a window to get reliable comms just 1/4mi away. Otherwise I've done well over 150mi hand held to hand held simplex between two mountain tops.
 

prcguy

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It was ok, not full quieting but usable quality. I've also done around 400mi with an MBITR radio on VHF AM at 5W with 1/4 wave vehicle antenna to an aircraft at high altitude around 37k ft. I forget the exact distance but you can probably do a RR search and find my old posting about it. The pilot passed over me and punched in the location on his GPS then headed out over the Pacific to Hawaii. He was reading out distance in NM and it was around 360 or 370 something NM, which was at or over 400 statute miles. When we quit the test we could still hear each other but it was getting pretty noisy. Probably could have done another 50mi on that one.

Nice. What was the received signal like - just barely there, or better than that?
 

eorange

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Pretty cool. I had a memorable VHF simplex QSO while in southwest Pa. I used my 5 watt HT with a whip, and the other guy was about 10 miles away. This was across extremely hilly terrain with absolutely no line of sight, and we were both full quieting. Not sure how that one happened.
 

CQ

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I did some testing a while back with someone with an MXT115 as a "base" and GXT2050VP4 and got up to 1.5 miles through wooded terrain. Elevation was anywhere between 375 and 290 feet. Anything further and couldn't hold reliable communications.
 

spongella

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Does the ISS have 70 cm capability? I think it does. I know of ops using dual band beam antennas on the ground who try to work it.
 

spongella

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I'm working on a radio project this week where a VHF handheld inside a building can't communicate with another outside 1/4 mile away. For this temporary job we had to use a 25w base station with a base antenna in the building but close to a window to get reliable comms just 1/4mi away. Otherwise I've done well over 150mi hand held to hand held simplex between two mountain tops.

My last job in county government was setting up communications for PODs (Point of Distribution), using FRS radios, ham radio VHF, and higher powered (40W) UHF band radios. Our county building was made of metal and signals were greatly attenuated so at times I had to resort to what you did, installed a base antenna and higher powered radio inside the building, which worked well to communicate (and receive) other radio signals on the site. If a building we were using was constructed of wood, signals would easily penetrate. Buildings made of concrete block also were better for radio comms than metal, which were the worst.
 

prcguy

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The building I was working with is a USCG base with secure rooms and going from deep inside the building to the outside was not so good. Not sure what the inner walls are made of but radios don't like it.

My last job in county government was setting up communications for PODs (Point of Distribution), using FRS radios, ham radio VHF, and higher powered (40W) UHF band radios. Our county building was made of metal and signals were greatly attenuated so at times I had to resort to what you did, installed a base antenna and higher powered radio inside the building, which worked well to communicate (and receive) other radio signals on the site. If a building we were using was constructed of wood, signals would easily penetrate. Buildings made of concrete block also were better for radio comms than metal, which were the worst.
 

BushDoctor

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True... MURS works slightly better than FRS HTs in my experience. You can actually use external antennas on MURS as opposed to the little "rubber-ducks" on FRS/GMRS bubble-pack radios.

And yes, all the Walmarts around here hang out on MURS. I occasionally hear some farm-related traffic on MURS, but otherwise its congestion free here.

Jason told me the Motorolas are RMM-2050 and he has an old M7a ground plance up 70 feet on a silo and the kids 5 miles away in Crystal Hill can call him if needed from their portables . Using my formula square root of height x 1.23 and -1/3 for high band comes to 7.3 miles
 
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