I can do selective copying, too. From your reference: A ground wave radio signal is made up from a number of constituents. If the antennas are in the line of sight then there will be a direct wave as well as a reflected signal. As the names suggest the direct signal is one that travels directly between the two antenna and is not affected by the locality. There will also be a reflected signal as the transmission will be reflected by a number of objects including the earth's surface and any hills, or large buildings. And from another source: (from the Naval Electrical Engineering Training Series textbook) Ground Waves The ground wave is actually composed of two separate component waves. These are known as the SURFACE WAVE and the SPACE WAVE (fig. 2-11). The determining factor in whether a ground wave component is classified as a space wave or a surface wave is simple. A surface wave travels along the surface of the Earth. A space wave travels over the surface. http://electriciantraining.tpub.com/14182/css/14182_76.htm I remember studying EM wave propagation theory in my electrical engineering classes. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of known methods of EM wave propagation. In general, each can be put into one of two categories. Simply put... if it bounces off the sky (skip), it's a sky wave. If it stays along the ground, it's a ground wave. If you want to argue semantics, find someone else. I'm done.
I got one at the same time I got a 2m/440 version from wouxun.us (who've changed their domain name to importcommunications.com) I'm in EM95nu and even though we're the county seat, we're about 50 miles in any direction from anything interesting, including 220 repeaters. There is one that I can hit if I stand in the "hot spot" I've identified in my backyard, so I made a vertical dipole out of some leftover 1/2" copper tubing and side mounted it one-half-wavelength off the side of the support for the other VHF/UHF antenna, so it stays pretty well omni. Feeding it with 40 feet of RG-8X, I can get into three repeaters FQ most of the time. I figure anything we can do to keep the band active will help keep us from losing the rest of it. Way back, I'd taken my Midland 13-509 and split it apart to make a repeater like so many folks did. The same place that I got my Wouxun and Baofeng rigs from has a 220 mobile, 75 watts I think, for around $225, but I'm not on the road enough to make use of the repeaters around here. If I lived in a more metro-kinda area, like W2-land, I might go for it, but not here where the ZIP Code is E I E I O. Nothing but good reports on the Wouxun, BTW. 73, Handlebar diddly dahdidah dit dit
