"Dick" wrote in message
...
It's just marketing hype Steve. Next thing you know they will be
50-mile units. A 2-watt HT would be lucky to get one mile let alone
25. Even 5-watt GMRS commercial units (like I have) are only useable
over a couple of miles unless you are line-of-sight. The ONLY way you
are going to get reliable communications over that kind of distance is
through a repeater.

Ah, yes, but those repeaters do miracles. I've personally hit a repeater in
Camas, WA from Salem, OR (about 60 miles) with an Icom IC-2. My best haul so
far into a repeater though took 30 watts, from the top of Coxcomb Hill in
Astoria, OR to a repeater on Mt. Scott in Portland, around 100 miles. But
that was still not as good a trick as the other.