On Sun, 30 Jan 2011 14:21:44 +0000, Plotus wrote:

I grant you that these radios and CB are different, but I thought you CB
buffs might know off hand something about VHF's as well. I'm aware that
some people have CB's with a linear? mabe broadcasting 20-30 watts, or
way illegal, but my question is for a VHF. Can you also pump up these
radios from stock. Not that I'd ever, ever do something to tamper with,
and incur the wrath of the FCC. Ahemm. Thanks for your
responces.....also what about if that (radio) ahemmm, was found to be
pumped up, would the antena requirements be aparrant? Thanks in
advance for this tutorial....ahemmmm....

Commercial VHF radios are totally different animals. Yes, they can be
legally pumped up quite a bit. What will incur the wrath of the FCC is
transmitting out of the assigned band or frequency and splattering the
airwaves so bad nobody nearby can talk. But most commercial radios are so
designed that outboard linears are not needed.

When I operated a search and rescue group's radio system on 47mhz, we had a
100 foot tower with a 100 watt radio as a base. Each of our mobile radios
ran 100 watts. We covered about 75 miles from the base with ease.

As for marine radio, that is definitely not to be compared to CB. As marine
radio has a purpose and is very strict on it's use. Yes, you could even
mount one in your car if you wanted to.

As for the antenna, most antennas can handle quite a bit of power with no
apparant changes that would catch the FCC's eye. A stainless steel whip can
handle nearly a 1,0000 watts with ease.

If you wanted to get into 2 meter ham radio, you wouldn't really need much
power unless you were off the beaten path. As most major cities generally
have a good network of repeaters.