David VanHorn wrote:
> The advantage gained by a high antenna is hard to overestimate.
> The ham guys who do balloons give interesting reports on their ability to
> get signals over huge areas.
> Different band, diffrent system, but height rules.

Yep.

http://www.eoss.org - Regularly fly baloons with transmitters on them 
beyond 90K feet MSL.

Or higher...

http://www.amsat.org - Orbit.

Or "my" highest transmitter:

http://www.w0cra.org/info/squaw.html -- which is about 6000 feet above 
average terrain.

The UHF system at that site easily receives a full-quieting analog FM 
carrier signal from my hand-held transmitter with produces 5W of RF, on 
its stock 3" high less-than-unity-gain antenna on top of the radio...

... from my basement.

I live more than 20 air-miles away from the repeater site.

I talk to people on the system regularly from my basement.

The receiver on the mountain-top was tested to start to receive a signal 
injected directly into it at -129 dBm AFTER the duplexer and feedline 
losses.  The filtering system and pre-amplifiers were custom designed 
specifically for the repeater and site.

Mobile coverage (50 Watt radio with decent outside gain antenna, 
installed properly) from 5 miles East of Laramie, Wyoming to somewhere 
in the Nebraska pan-handle along I-80, almost all of I-25 north of the 
Palmer Divide between Denver and Colorado Springs, CO, almost all of 
I-76 from the Front Range of the Rocky Mtns to Sterling, CO, and of 
course almost all of the back roads, towns, and cities in northeastern 
through Central-Eastern Colorado -- barring behind small hills and 
ridge-lines.

That site sees (and "hears") everything for over a 150 mile radius. 
It's more fun than anyone should be allowed to have with their pants on.

Nate
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