On Apr 27, 9:47 am, Joey wrote:
Hi,
I'm trying to determine if I could use 10 meters to contact a station
about 75 miles away with about 2500ft elevation of a couple sets of
hills in between with just simple antennas on either end. Perhaps a
10m dipole on one end and some kind of stealthy one on the other. I
assume this would have to be ground wave only given the distance and
current band conditions.
My parents are both techs so we're currrently limited to parts of 10m
as the lowest band and I'd like to have something reliable without
need repeaters for disaster comms. We actually only have a few single
hop VHF/UHF repeaters between us, though quite a few linked ones.
I've also thought of 6m due to smaller antenna requirements, but I'm
pretty sure this is too far...
Thanks!


75 miles is do-able, but stretching it on 10m..
#1, if using simple antennas, good elevated
verticals, or ground planes would be your
only chance. No way you are likely to make
it with horizontal dipoles. And to make 75
miles, the antennas really need to be fairly high.
The hills may be a problem..
Power would help...
If both stations had high ground planes, to talk
75 miles with any reliability, you really would
need an amp, doing 500+ watts on both ends...
There is no NVIS on 10m, unless you get the
fluke chance of backscatter, or aurora..
I've done both on 10m... Backscatter is not that
uncommon, but the aurora is not going to happen
too often. But I've used aurora propogation to work
stations a lot closer than usual.. Sounds like talking
through a window fan... The last time I did that was
in the late 80's at the solar cycle peak.
Anyway, talking 75 miles reliably on 10 can be done,
but most that do it run high verticals, or beams,
and most run power. Note CBers.. They do it all
the time.
But again, that hill may or may not be a problem..
What you might want to look at is 2m SSB using
beams.. But again, the hills... ??
Those will be more of a problem, the higher in freq
you go I bet. Maybe it's time to upgrade, and use a
freq more suited, like 40 in the day, and 75 at night..
Actually, 75m will work that distance most any time
of the day.
If you can't have at least a good vertical on 10m, it
ain't gonna happen. Where as a low stealth dipole
would work on the lower bands, using NVIS propo.
Also, no power is needed in most cases.. 100w
is more than enough. 10w is plenty in many cases.
MK