Receive distance and transmit distance!

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devildogusmc4

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Hi, now say someone is 10 miles away and you hear them transmitting, can you transmit back and that guy hears you.
BASIC QUESTION: Is the receiving distance different from the transmitting distance.
 

Token

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Hi, now say someone is 10 miles away and you hear them transmitting, can you transmit back and that guy hears you.
BASIC QUESTION: Is the receiving distance different from the transmitting distance.

You did not mention what band you were talking about, and that will play into the answer a bit, for example at HF freqs propagation can sometimes be a bit odd, but from the distances I will assume VHF and tailor my answer that way.

Path loses work both ways equally, that is to say all other things being equal (roughly equal transmit power and antennas, roughly equal noise floors at each location, roughly equal receiver sens) if you can hear them you can talk to them. That assumes aproximately equal ERP on each end of the link. For example if you are hearing a station 50 miles away but he is running legal limit (1500 W) into an antenna with 10 dB of gain and you are on a 5W handheld you probably ain't gonna make it back to him.

T!
 

kb2vxa

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Yes it is and it works both ways. Simplistic yes, but with so many complex variables it's impossible to give a complete answer here. I suggest you study up a bit on radio, antenna and propagation theory, all your answers are at your fingertips.
 

mrweather

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Unless you're at a high elevation it's going to be a real challenge getting 25 miles of UHF range with that or any handheld radio.
 

devildogusmc4

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Im new to HAM's and these types of radios, Im in a valley that surrounds me, with a wide open sky, and we have major natural gas companies. Can their satellites boost me up or would that ruin the sigal even more. I looked on Google Earth, and at most is 18 miles, over a major city. Any luck there?
 

zz0468

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Hi, now say someone is 10 miles away and you hear them transmitting, can you transmit back and that guy hears you.
BASIC QUESTION: Is the receiving distance different from the transmitting distance.

Transmit coverage is calculated separately from receive coverage. If all factors are equal, then the range in both directions is equal. But it frequently is not.

Im new to HAM's and these types of radios, Im in a valley that surrounds me, with a wide open sky, and we have major natural gas companies. Can their satellites boost me up or would that ruin the sigal even more. I looked on Google Earth, and at most is 18 miles, over a major city. Any luck there?

I'm not quite sure what you're asking here, but in any case, the answer is no.You can't use a natural gas company's infrastructure for ham communications.
 
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N8IAA

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Im new to HAM's and these types of radios, Im in a valley that surrounds me, with a wide open sky, and we have major natural gas companies. Can their satellites boost me up or would that ruin the sigal even more. I looked on Google Earth, and at most is 18 miles, over a major city. Any luck there?

One word answer: NO on the satellites. Especially since you are in a valley, 18 miles on a radio that does 1.5 watt, ain't gonna happen. Definitely not on UHF. You need to think 50 watt mobile radios with gain antennas. Terrain and manmade/natural objects that will get in the way of line of sight to repeaters and/or someone on simplex. It is just the nature of radio waves.
HTH,
Larry
 

W8RMH

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W2NJS

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To the OP, please stop with the pointless questions. If you need help, just say so and tell us if you have a ham license. Good information will flow from that disclosure. Unless you have a ham license you have no right to transmit on any band or frequency except for what we call the FRS band which you can look up on Google and learn about. From your questions it sounds as if you know very little about any aspects of two-way communications and are at the stage where we all were at one time until we dug in, did some reading, and more often than not found some ham friends to work with and learn from.
 

devildogusmc4

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Yes i am new to this, I know about scanner, walkie talkies, and CB's, and I wanted to know more about ham, people around my neighbor hood, the local law enforcement set us up a frequency where we can talk, and they told us not to worry about licenses. Sounds weird, right. Below is a picture of what I am describing the hills, and my open range. The hill has tree's, and is about 900 feet tall. Here is a link to a picture I made. http://img593.imageshack.us/img593/4333/radioyp.png Sorry for bothering, Im just a noob at this. We transmit on UHF, about a few miles away, and I wanted to know if I can transmit with a High Gain antenna, not a rubber duckie one, and they can receive my transmissions. Thank you!
 
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