Is this possible?

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radiopro52

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I hope this is the right forum to place this. I'm picking up a Ham repeater from a pretty good distance. Signal is weak and the audio is scratchy, but I can hear it pretty good. The callsign is N4GIS, frequency is 147.015. After a lookup, this repeater is located in Cartersville, GA, and I'm near Decatur, AL. This repeater is 137 miles from my house. I'm not using an amp and I'm only using the RS 20-176. Is this a very rare occurance, or is the wind just blowing the right direction tonight?
 

radiopro52

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firefighter89 said:
Yes it is possible. I have received VHF frequencies from over 100 miles many times. Check out this link to learn more about it.

http://wiki.radioreference.com/index.php/DXing_Above_30_Mhz
Thanks for the link. I just never thought I would pick up a signal that far. I even get one bar of signal strength on it sometimes. So, in other words, I guess the wind is just blowing in the right direction. I may not be able to pick it up tomorrow.
 

radiopro52

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BaLa said:
Basically, yes

although it's slightly more complicated than that..and it actually has nothing to do with the wind.:lol: :lol:
Lol, yeah, I understand. But it's great to hear things far away. I wish this happened to UHF too.
 

af5rn

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radiopro52 said:
Lol, yeah, I understand. But it's great to hear things far away. I wish this happened to UHF too.
Actually, it occasionally does. We used to hear the Houston Fire Department on our UHF radios in Dallas so loud and clear that it overpowered our repeaters. That's a 275 mile distance, and I'm sure they were heard much farther than that. Not often, but it happens!
 

n2mdk

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This is not uncommon at all, VHF can carry quite far normally. At this time of the year you can get things carrying even further. In the Spring and fall you can get ducting happening, one sign of this can be a warm day that cools off in the evening, or right before a storm is coming.
I tell the story of the night before Hurricane Andrew hit FL. from my Apt in NYC I was able to work a repeater in Georgia. I was using a bit of power about 175 Watts but I was working it.
 

radiopro52

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af5rn said:
Actually, it occasionally does. We used to hear the Houston Fire Department on our UHF radios in Dallas so loud and clear that it overpowered our repeaters. That's a 275 mile distance, and I'm sure they were heard much farther than that. Not often, but it happens!
275 miles? Man, there's a load of things I could listen to in that range. But maybe the Houstion Fire Department's output power or ERP is very high and that helped it reach out that far? If not, that's quite amazing. I haven't heard anything that far away yet, but it would be sweet.


n2mdk said:
This is not uncommon at all, VHF can carry quite far normally. At this time of the year you can get things carrying even further. In the Spring and fall you can get ducting happening, one sign of this can be a warm day that cools off in the evening, or right before a storm is coming.
I tell the story of the night before Hurricane Andrew hit FL. from my Apt in NYC I was able to work a repeater in Georgia. I was using a bit of power about 175 Watts but I was working it.
Wow, now that is quite a trip. But now this question comes to me. Is it only possible of traveling that far in ham only, or can police and EMS stations carry that far in VHF as well?
 

firefighter89

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radiopro52 said:
275 miles? Man, there's a load of things I could listen to in that range. But maybe the Houstion Fire Department's output power or ERP is very high and that helped it reach out that far? If not, that's quite amazing. I haven't heard anything that far away yet, but it would be sweet.



Wow, now that is quite a trip. But now this question comes to me. Is it only possible of traveling that far in ham only, or can police and EMS stations carry that far in VHF as well?

Police and EMS stations carry that far too. Anything in the VHF range can carry that far during ducting. Check out this website, it's a ducting forecast for North America.

http://www.dxinfocentre.com/tropo.html
 

radiopro52

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firefighter89 said:
Police and EMS stations carry that far too. Anything in the VHF range can carry that far during ducting. Check out this website, it's a ducting forecast for North America.

http://www.dxinfocentre.com/tropo.html
Cool. Let me make sure I'm reading the map right though. In an area that's painted yellow, orange, red, ect., does that mean you'll be picking up frequencies far away if you live in that area, or that you'll be receiving frequencies from those areas?

My local area was colored in light blue today. The area I picked up the ham repeater from was in green. Looks like they were accurate.
 

loumaag

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Ducting is an interesting phenomenon.

One day in the late 90's as I was commuting to work in Baton Rouge, LA I started talking to one of the locals, but he was actually in Memphis, TN unloading (he is a truck driver). We were using the W5KRO (147.285) repeater mounted at 1,100 feet on a tower just outside of Baton Rouge. My commute (at the time) was about 45 minutes and we chatted all the way. He was leaving Memphis in a bit on this way back to the Baton Rouge area and as I signed at work he was still chatting with some others. I had an HT in the office and occasionally during the day I checked in with him on his travels. He stayed on the repeater the entire day on the way home.
 

kb2vxa

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radiopro52

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Most of Pine Log Mountain is in Cherokee county, GA, just about 40 miles north of Atlanta. According to Google Earth, the highest peak of the mountain is about 2300 feet. If they put the repeater on the highest point, then it would be ideal for wide coverage. But it doesn't say how much they're outputting. Most of the repeaters in my local area are on mountains as well, and I only get three bars of signal on a repeater 30 miles away.
 

zz0468

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Warren, what's that green stuff all over that mountain? All our mountains in Southern California are brown.

Seriously... I know of one linked system here that routinely uses 420 links in excess of 150 miles, and even an Amateur Television network using similar length paths on microwave frequencies.

To the OP, yeah, 137 miles is neat. But you ain't seen nothing yet!
 

mancow

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I briefly caught some Chicago ( I think it was PD ) traffic back in the early 1990s. I was about 40 miles South of KC at the time using a hand held scanner in a second story of residence.
 

KI4RDO

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yea i live in ga and was on my ht into one of the local repeaters talking with a guy in vicksberg, Mississippi every time he would key up i could hear 5 other repeaters
 
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