On Thu, 03 Mar 2005 02:08:46 -0500, Scott
wrote:

Still playing with MURS?

Want to buy a 19-1210? I've got a few IC-2100's. Blows the doors
off the 19-1210 for receive. Low power is 5 watts. Not enough to
make the g-man mad! No one on the lower 3, and the last 2 are used
by local businesses. I leave them be. No action here on MURS.

I've found pretty much the same thing. The upper 2 freqs are still in
use by old business users. The lower three are dead. I had hoped for a
old time "CB-like" atmosphere up there, but so far, there's not much
interest.


Most
of the CB'ers have gone ham, and the last few CB'ers have asked where
everybody went. I tell them to scan from 144 to 148 hooked up to their
CB antenna. They need the height to hear simplex and distant repeaters.

5 watts will hit repeaters 50+ miles away from the mobile.
10 watts makes for a solid copy. 55 watts and a portable 3 element
beam, well that can win VHF contests in the mobile category!

It only took 2 months to realize the VHF FM travels farther locally
then 11 meters does. I can talk places simplex that 11 can't do!

That's amazing isn't it? I found out the same thing when I first
started playing with 2 meters 20-some years ago. Point-point
communications range from base stations (especially with multi-element
beams), is much better (watt for watt) than what I used to get on CB.
A 2 watt HT can hit repeaters 10 or 20 miles away. However, mobile to
mobile, or base to mobile simplex is a bit more dicey on 2 meters.
There's a lot more multipath flutter (If, like me, you live near a
bunch of hills), and 11 meters usually works better for that. It all
comes down to terrain.

Have you tried SSB on 2M yet? That's even more fun, especially in the
summer when there are tropo ducts practically every day. It's not
uncommon to work most of the east coast with 300 watts and a set of 13
element beams.

Dave
"Sandbagger"
http://home.ptd.net/~n3cvj





Go figure...