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GregS · August 3rd 06, 09:39 PM posted to rec.radio.amateur.equipment

In article , wrote:
Dick wrote in
:

On Wed, 02 Aug 2006 14:53:41 GMT, John
wrote:

You will never, ever get 18 miles. The claims by Midland are very
deceptive.

Never, ever is pretty strong. It would take only a few milliwatts
between two mountain tops 18 miles apart. I agree that from a
practical standpoint, that is completely unrealistic, even for a full
5-watt transceiver. I have two excellent GMRS 5-watt HT's, and I'm
lucky to get even one mile in typical terrain. Now, if I had a really
good antenna, that would be a different story.

I stand corrected. I did of course know that. I didn't want to go into
the "you have to be in outer space" type deal.

I did not find the power level. Generally the .5 watt FRS are
advertised as 2 mile. 2 watt would be 4 miles. 4 watt would be 8 miles,
and 8 watt would be 16 miles. This just equates to signal level.
I bought a set of the lower budget units without the volume knob.
I was sorry. One feature I do not like, when it scans, it only locks onto the
channel for so long, then it continues to scan. There is no option in my unit to change this.
I have gotten 4-8 miles on my FRS, not much of a problem line of sight.
They go over a hundred miles under optimum conditions.
It would be better if the GMRS and FRS units came with longer antennas,
of course the FRS transmit power would have to be decreased in that case.

I used to measure field strengths of my old FRS radios. A lot
of variation seen.

greg