On Tue, 15 Apr 2008 18:18:26 -0500, "Ralph Mowery"
wrote:


wrote in message
.. .
Yup, ducting, meteor scatter etc can all provide extended VHF range.
I've only done about 250 miles on 2 meters, though on 6 meters my
farthest contact was about 3000 miles...........did as straight a line
as I could on MS Streets & Trips to 'calculate' that so there may well
be some error.


Evidently line of sight means different things. I take it as the common
used formula of the square root of the height in feet is equal to the miles
to ground modified by about 1.2 to 1.4 for the way the radio waves bend
around the earth.

Good stations using ssb and a couple of hundred watts can work close to 250
miles almost any time on 2 meters and 432 MHz. I have worked over 800
miles (North Carolina to Texas and the end of Florida ) several times on 2
meters. Also close to that on 432.

Not sure how you want to calculate it, but have also worked England via a
satellite that was out to around 22,000 miles.

I was not trying to imply my contacts were line of sight, guess I
didn't make that fully clear. Agree on the normal way to figure line
of sight - unless of course you are buying the "28 mile GMRS/FRS"
radios 8-}