Frequency distance

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kb5udf

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Yep

A great many factors go into how far away given transmitter is receivable. Notably, the height of the reciving antenna and transmitting antenna, antenna gain, and terrain.

My heuristic would be, for most public safety applications, you can probably receive a vhf signal at 40 miles away, with an outdoor antenna up about 25+ feet, using decent coax.

Naturally, your mileage may vary markedly.
 

Pro-2004

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Banning, CA
kb5udf said:
A great many factors go into how far away given transmitter is receivable. Notably, the height of the reciving antenna and transmitting antenna, antenna gain, and terrain.

My heuristic would be, for most public safety applications, you can probably receive a vhf signal at 40 miles away, with an outdoor antenna up about 25+ feet, using decent coax.

Naturally, your mileage may vary markedly.

Great answer!
 

RayAir

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I used to be able to hear some low band stuff with a roof top antenna w/low band elements from 50 miles away. Too bad nobody uses low band anymore here. I used to listen to MSP, Lapeer FD and Adler's on low band. Also when the roads were bad in the winter Brandon School buses were fun to listen to on 33.080.
 

Ejohnsonmfr

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But the UHF is a different story, right? My county uses the 450.xxx bands and I get lousy reception in my vehicle and house. I have a RS mag mount on my truck, and if I'm more than 10 miles out of town, it starts breaking up. It's an old Uniden Bearcat BC560XLT scanner, but it works fine.
 

pogbobo

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Jan 9, 2007
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VA
like they said, it is mostly on how high the transmitter antenna is ... and if a big f off mountain is in the way haha, like where i live :(
 
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