Radioman wrote:

BuckEye wrote:

Make sure that the radio has 2 watts output for the longer range.

I hate to echo stewart, but .5 watts or 2 watts won't make any difference.
The only way to increase the range enough to phone home about, is to connect
to an external antenna that's up high.

Yes and no. If you can't make contact at all with .5 watts, chances are
that 2 watts won't make things much better. On the other hand, 2 watts
is a 6 db improvement in signal over .5 watts. So if you are marginal at
..5 watts, a 6 db gain will be enough to bring you back into the quieting
range of the receiver again.


If you climb up to the top of a tall building, you can talk 7 miles with
an FRS radio. I've done it. Can't on the ground, though.

If you climb a high enough mountain, you can get over 20 miles in some
cases with a .5 watt FRS radio. Such is the characteristics of line of
sight propagation.

Dave
"Sandbagger"