An interesting conversation here. I will stay out of the "fray." Peter, there is a huge difference between the terrain of Boston and that of western National Forests. In the area of the town I live in, within sight of my condo, is a view that exceeds 4,000 feet. The elevation of town is 7800 to 8200 feet and just south of town about 5 miles are three peaks of 12,000 feet plus. The eastern side of town, furthest from the crest of the Sierra Nevada, is lower in elevation than the western side. In many cases major drainages bend as they travel from their source to the toe of the slope of the mountains. The upper portion of the drainage is often behind high peaks. A repeater can be placed that provides good coverage for the lower portion of a drainage but cannot reach the upper portion very well at all. Placing a repeater on each peak that would provide coverage to the upper portions of drainages would require many dozens of additional repeaters. The logistics of doing so is one factor and the location of many of the peaks is in designated wilderness areas where new repeater sites are not allowed.
Repeater strength depends on whether the site has commercial power. Even so most of the repeaters on the Inyo National Forest run 100 watts or more. There are a few sites that are very remote and on some very windy peaks where the size of the solar collector won't provide enough power so they are at about 25-50 watts. Mobile radios run 25-50 watts and handhelds 5 watts max. The goal is to provide handheld coverage for the entire forest, but cannot be achieved for the reasons given above. In wilderness areas only a handheld can be carried and these areas have the most dramatic terrain. From a employee safety standpoint coverage in wilderness areas can be more critical than the frontcountry as employees often spend 10 consecutive days per 14 day pay period in the wilderness. The frontcountry is an area accessible by vehicle as opposed to backcountry (most often designated wilderness) where vehicles cannot provide access.
Peter, your eastern urban perspective often shows in your posts. It does sound as though you know very little about the west. Maybe you have some limited experience traveling in the west. In any case the west is quite different from the east. My limited exposure in the east is confined to North and South Carolina, which is really in the south. People in the east call something remote that would that is similar to some of the rural areas of the west that are less than an a half hour drive to the center of a good sized city. The mountains have less relief than our average foothills in the west. I've said many times on RR that remote begins where you may live in a town where you can't pick up your mail or buy milk and lettuce. A friend of mine lived, not at a small ranger station or fire station, but at a district office where the mail could be picked up 45 miles away (25 on dirt, 20 on pavement) but milk and lettuce were 90 miles away. The remote part of the district started at this ranger station. There wasn't commercial power or phone service, just generators and mobile phones, this before cell phones provided service. In fact, I don't think the area can be called remote if cell service exists. Remote can often be places where one travels several hours and doesn't cross a paved road, let alone drive on pavement, before strapping on a backpack or saddling the horses at a trailhead.
The point of the last paragraph is you can't compare the radio coverage of Massachusetts with much of anything west of Denver.
