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Ralph Mowery · April 23rd 17, 07:41 PM posted to rec.radio.amateur.antenna

In article , says...

On 4/23/2017 10:17 AM, Ralph Mowery wrote:
In article ,

Going from 5 to 25 watts of FM will gain almost nothing. Raising the
antenna several feet from the sitting down position will gain a lot.

Are you saying that a hand held 5 watt transceiver with a rubber ducky
antenna will reach all receivers because of the line of sight
limitation? Is that true even for contacting a land station with a 200
foot high antenna? A 3 foot high antenna and a 200 foot high antenna
give nearly 20 statute miles of range. Will 5 watts be heard that far
away?

AT VHF and above antenna height is more important than power.

I have worked someone in an airplane that was at 30 to 40 thousand feet
thta was using a handy talkey and I was using about 10 watts. He was
almost 200 miles away. The space station has hams on it that are using
about 5 watts and I have heard them many times. Not sure of the
range,but would guess several hundred miles at times.

I know a couple of local guys that used the family radios to talk over
50 miles from one mountain top to another. Not sure of the power but
probably l watt or less.

While going to much higher power, like 500 to 1000 watts will give more
range, just going less than 10 times the power gains very little in
range on vhf and above.

I don't know how to mount an antenna on what he wants to do. There used
to be some coaxial type antennas made that fed from the bottom and did
not require a ground plane.