How to Figure out your transmit range

If you have a (radio ) scanner you should be close enough to hear me and the local nets. i'm on ch-20 CB early in the mornings and 29.600 FM after 3pm and Sunday at 8pm 147.550 FM Also you can hear the locals on 146.500, 146.520 simplex.

Good DX see you around the bands.
Bruce

 

You have to remember also even though 11 meter is HF in freg range it is still primaryly line of site communications. Now standing flat footed the average person is 8 miles to the edge of the horizon because of the curvature of the earth. So the higher you get your antenna from the ground will mean the further you can talk to. But the reciever has to also increase his elevation above ground. This will help your range the most this all come from years of working with microwave 2.4 gig shots and it translates to CB and 2 meter as well.

 

Mostly true ....

Groundwave goes down fast above 3 mhz I have a friend 35 miles south on me and we can't work even on 75 meters. The higher you go in frequency the more weather will effect all of this. At 96 GHZ we found the change in tempture alone caused waves to bend over a 7 mile path.

Still nothing beats a clear path or a nice shot over water be it 1600 meters or the MM bands.

 

Your so right and a good thing to remember.. but it seems I have been able to talk further on good weather days..How is this possible..Im no expert so any info is appreciated.
Take care
Greg

 

Over flat open land 20 miles the earth is curving away from you quickly which is why even the radio/TV stations with 1,000 foot high antennas rarely go more than 100 miles.

 

I know you know and realize that you can not compare vhf and uhf tv to 26-27 Mhz of CB Radio. If you were to mount the CB antenna on a 1000' elevation it would probably talk around 100 miles without skip.

As far as a mobile with a 65 watt amp maybe 15 miles. Situation changes everything but general this is probably close. A stock 4 watt radio is only good for 3 to 5 miles in the flatlands, but thats what the intent was.

 

I run 29.600 Fm all the time as well as 52.525 . The ground is going away at the same rate no matter what band you are on.

I have not found a great deal of diffrence between 29 and 146 not over flat terain in a city or through trees yes. The BIG change is in the capture area of the antennas this is one reason a 29.600 mhz moble can work 20 miles while a 146 mhz one maybe 10 On my car I run a 98 inch wip on 10 meters but have a 5DB gain Hustler 144mhz wip that is almost the same size and get simular ranges. Background noise goes down with frequency and bending due to temp and ground temp differance ( inverson also ) goes up .

Here in Florida if you go across state from Tampa to Orlando 90% of the time a well thought out 2 meter station will work as well as a 10 meter one. NOW ON 40 -75 Meters you can use ground wave out to several hunderd miles and cover this state quit well but not on 10. I run on 2 a (3) 5/8 wave stacked base antenna it is 14 foot tall.

IF you could just use GROUNDWAVE 10 would win and if we dont get some sunspots soon we will all be on 1750 meters looking for skip !

The photo was shot under wires they are not close to the antennas but to get the antennas in I had to stand under them