Cascadia Antenna Solutions

If it was a base station in Salt Lake City chances are he had a antenna at least 30 ft high and possibly had a directional beam that was pointed directly at you, and that would definitely help with the range for which you were able to achieve with your setup, however 8 to 10 miles with a 4 ft attenna on a cascadia is still pretty good but as I posted earlier I think you will find ( as others have) that 5ft or longer will be better.

 

7ft Firestik, I'm not impressed yet.

 

80 miles mobile to mobile from Drums Pennsylvania to Harrisburg Pennsylvania with a 5 &1/2 foot Van Ordt Power Stick mounted on a 2004 Jeep Grand Cherokee with a hustler stainless steel ball mount on the right rear quarter panel with a Galaxy 99 going into a Palomar 400 80 Watts carrier AM @ 27.915 tuned by Mark Sherman when he was in Arizona. Every day of the week no skip Involved. It will never happen with a big truck but those are some numbers to shoot for.
The guy on the receiving end had a stock Cobra 29 and a Francis antenna and he was sitting at the TA truck stop at Exit 77 off 81 in Harrisburg. I didn't know he heard me until I drove down there the next day and he asked me if I was the guy selling microphones up in drums on Interstate 80 the day before.

 

I know where Drums is, north of hazelton and I've never had an 80 mile straight shot on 11 or 10 meters from there.

The last time I was there, the best I did with any "non-skip" contact was 40 miles on 10 meters with 150 watts going into a portable NVIS antenna and the other guy was a fixed location.

I'm leaning towards you having a NVIS moment with that contact, because I don't think tropo ducting happens that low frequency.

 

PM me for my phone number, and the next time you happen to be coming up from Harrisburg maybe we can arrange to duplicate those results. While I was sitting in Drums at the pilot I had several drivers tell me they've been hearing me since they left the Love's truck stop down at the 92 off of 81 that's at least sixty miles I would think. That's an everyday occurrence if I happen to be on the radio

 

Keep in mind, you can't expect miracles from a tractor trailer and I was in a Jeep Grand Cherokee

 

Best two-way conversation I ever had out of a tractor trailer was about 60 miles mobile to Base with Mark Sherman on the other end in his shop at exit 19 in Quartzsite Arizona off Interstate 10 and I made it as far as the border patrol checkpoint on Highway 78 in California before I lost him. I was driving a Volvo 770 with homemade antennas cophased on the outside of the rear fairings with a magnum S9 going into a fat boy straight 6 Class C on Channel 19 a.m. 150 Watts carrier with a mountain in between us

 

How long has this been your hobby RP?

 

31 years