art wrote:

...
Hmmmm. I would think that going to a frequency such as 144 MHz would
be the way to go as radiation would tend to hug the earths
surface.With 28 MHz the height factor not only be impracticable (point
to point) but no amount of extra power is going to lower the TOA. When
my son was in a hospital over 100 miles away he used his hand held to
a local repeater and I used 10 watts with a directional antenna to the
distant repeater with intervening land less than 100 foot elevation
variance. Contact was always assured.
Art


A couple of decades ago on 10 meters with a 3 element yagi and 100
watts, I frequently chatted with a grass valley station from a location
in calaveras county, a distance of over 75 miles as the crow flies (also
made a few contacts in San Francisco.) Antenna was 35 ft in the air and
the other guy in grass valley had a similar setup.

You never know, 'ya just never know ... but with two omni antennas, I
doubt it would have been done.

Now australia with an omni and a 100 watts? No problem with good sun spots!

JS