How Far Can A Ham Radio Transmit? What’s The Range??
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- Опубліковано 6 жов 2024
- I promise, I am not just gonna say "It Depends!" But that answer deserves more than a simple answer.
Thanks for watching!
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This video earned a like just for the intro alone. I love creators who respect peoples time.
I have become completely fascinated with amateur radio I plan to test for my license next Tuesday and I just want to say thanks for all of the content it's helped tremendously.
I’m in the same boat. 42 years old and I’m just fascinated with it all. I don’t get to test until the 18th and I’ll just sitting around listening to other talk
Great Video. I was able to get 40 miles on a UV5R, but that is transmitting to a repeater that has about 2,500 ft higher elevation and nothing really in the way so perfect line of sight. Also never forget take a step to the left or the right to improve reception.
204 mile summit 3 times. Every morning I use a repeater 45 miles away.
@@Johnyrocket70 Yup, I've gotten multiple hundred mile Summit-to-Summit contacts several times as well! Elevation makes a HUGE difference!
… It's just a jump to the left
And then a step to the right
Put your hands on your hips
You bring your knees in tight
😄
Wow! That was dang near an entire Tech/General class in a 15 minute video. Aspiring hams should listen to the video, go prep for the test, then come back and listen to it again. If it all makes perfect sense, they'll surely pass. This is a great video for folks to use as a study guide. Thanks Josh!
This should be the “Start Here” video for anyone coming into radio for emergency purposes. Great work sir!
Agreed. Great reality check on expectations. My main takeaway from fooling with ham radio for a few years is that in VHF/UHF while good radios, good antennas, and decent power have their place, height is your real friend. Height generally gives you line of sight or at least minimizes those obstructions between transmitter and receiver that absorb or reflect VHF/UHF.
thanks to your technician license crash course i was able to study and pass my tech license on Monday i got my callsign yesterday, thank you very much !! cant wait to enjoy this great hobby
How did you study online or what?
@TheToymaster11 so I started radios with scanners then went to cb and really wanted to get my ham license, so I already knew the electrical basics, I'm a boyscout and I earned the radio merit badge and loved it and then I found his mini series on the study material for the tech license and watched to sub section 4 before I had to leave for my test and passed on my 2nd try, but I did most of my dedicated studying in the 4 or 5 hours before my test. And now I'm kc1tgz
Man, you make the best videos. Easy to follow and straight to the point with great information.
Thanks! I appreciate that!
I agree. I think the reason a lot of people are intimidated by the hobby is due to the highly technical and abstractness of it. When knowledgeable people try to impress novice people with how much they know, it turns them off.
Josh does a great job trying to explain it in a way that is easily understandable and inspires interest.
"How many Fars can a Ham radio Transmit?" There, fixed it for you.
🤣
…… …….. ……. affiliate link below……
Sooooo what I think he is saying is that the "so called experts" are saying that the amount a "fars" in radio is variable? LOL Well, I think we all know that his shirt probably doesn't care... LOL🤣
Bender singing
How many fars can a ham radio go?
How many fars could a woodchuck chuck, if a woodchuck could chuck a Baofeng?..... Roger?
i have a *Yaesu FT-7900R* mobile rig, runs *at 50w* max. using an omni-directional *2m* / 70cm half-wave dual band whip(? the wire with a swirly spring half way up it, about 3ft long) the furthest i was able to reach a *reliable repeater both ways* was about *64 miles* over somewhat *hilly land* in the eastern rockies on 2m with clear weather.
not the same i know, but it's an anecdote related to range.
note that 64 miles is great enough distance that line-of-sight does not apply due to the curvature of the earth. at least, in my example above. there's no way i could see that mountain from here.
On 144mhz and up you can get forward scatter that bends your signal past line of sight. I routinely hit the .25/.85 repeater in Minneapolis 125 miles away. Using a 17' tall Tram base antenna. On 2 meter SSB I can hear the EN53 beacon 350 miles away 90% of the time but I have a wee bit of antenna gain there, 21db...
Longest distance simplex I've done with an HT was about 17 miles. Used my UV-5X3 and a Smiley 2700, and it was essentially hilltop to hilltop.
That same setup hits repeaters 40 miles away, no problem. I've also hooked it up to a basic loop antenna on a pole inside my house and can reach a few repeaters 60 miles away, even on 70cm.
Too many people dismiss just how far an HT can reliably reach.
I saw 40-50 miles distances in my past SOTA activations using 2-meter band HT, summit-to-summit or other line-of-sight.
Look for tropo ducting, a friend with a 220mhz FM HT was in Sisseton SD on the watchtower, he worked a station in TN during a really good tropo duct session! Guys on SSB were working into FL during that one and from my house in EN24ho(grid square) SW MN I heard Oscar CO2OJ in Cuba on 144.200 SSB, he was working 4 land stations and none of us could get his attention! 2m and up weak signal can be a blast! Horizontal antenna polarization though for it! Matt turned his HT sideways to work the TN station.
Great job of just actually giving a short and simple answer first, THEN explaining all the nuances.
Hello Josh a great video that pretty clearly explains the issues, and I am sure this will be a big help to a lot of newer hams who can be very confused by this important aspect of the hobby,
Thank you for answering in the very beginning!
Deserved my like and comment!
Best intro ever. No music, no bubbles, and totally unexpected.
I talked from Darland Mountain, near Yakima, WA 7900' ele., to Sand Point, ID with 5w and an AEA 1/2 wave telescoping antenna on 146.52 simplex. About 300 miles. It always depends on variables.
I didn't realize 2m was better in open and 70cm better in buildings. Thanks for that knowledge.
70cm is worse in vegetation than 2m... pretty much true as you go higher in frequency the worse vegetation loss gets. On 10ghz it can completely block a signal!
I freaking LOVE that you just chuck the answer out in the first few seconds!
Josh is the best explainer!!!!
My personal HT best distance is 90-miles with a UV-5R and OEM antenna!
From: Two Harbors Catalina Island, at sea level to the 70cm KERN repeater on Frazier Peak ~8000ft ASL. And I made contact with a mobile station in Bakersfield!
20 years ago I had a cheap mag-mount antenna on the roof of a van, connected to an Alinco 2m 5W HT. I was talking with someone around 40 miles away. For those GMRS operators (of which I am admittedly one, for operating with other GMRS operators) who really want range, just get your Technician license. Your range will increase as you gain access to bands that have significantly better propagation and you'll not really have to contend with congestion with other users either. And if you do want to talk to random other people, just listen on the simplex calling frequency or one of the repeaters.
I never hear anyone on GMRS/FRS and we even have a local repeater. Except for kids in my subdivision that use FRS as toys (which is okay). It's so boring I deleted the GMRS/FRS channels from all of my ham HTs that allow it (for listening only of course) and also my Uniden SDS200 scanner. Too dead and boring. Even our local 220 ham repeaters get more traffic and that's saying something!! GMRS/FRS is not popular in Utah so far.
@@markr.1984 It's active here in the Phoenix metro area and up north in the rural outdoor recreation areas. Problem up there is there are too many repeaters and not enough clear channels.
Great video with honest and concise info about the subject. The fun of the hobby is finding ways to transmit/receive farther... and, sometimes you surprise yourself when you do. Example; we were recently in Colorado and drove to the summit on Pikes Peak (14,110' elevation), well, I was getting stations on 146.520 as far as 75+ miles from the Denver area clear as day (Icom ID-5100, 3rd brake light antenna mount on my 2023 F-150, and a small Comet B-10 antenna running 50 watts). Similar results using my ID-51A on the outdoor observation deck of the Empire State Building in New York... the Big Apple woke up when they heard my Arizona callsign, KI7LIL. Now, two HT's in vehicles traveling in a convoy together will be greatly reduced to line of sight, or at least under a mile, or less. Just gotta learn and practice to get a feel for realistic expectations of what the radio equipment you're using at the time will achieve. Cheers! Pete in Arizona - KI7LIL
One of the best vid I seen in years . Full of basic info needed for beginner. Thnx you sir .
I like these short and simple videos
Thanks!
KGB FM was my go to when I lived in San Diego during my Navy days 74-77. I remember fondly Jim and Linda McGuiness.
Good stuff Josh, I'm a newb and with some of your picture/diagrams, this was rather easy to consume and understand all at the same time!!
When I was a kid our neighbor broadcast on a CB base station. We could ear it on our phone and our hall light flickered in sync with their broadcast. At night they spoke with Texas (we lived in Ohio).
propagation, thermal ducting. if your on top a mountain say 6,000 ft you can transmit 5 watts several hundred miles. these are all factors in your transmit range. if you are on satellite is also a consideration. I transmitted thru a thermal duct 1 time 6500 miles away to a repeater on 2meter with 1 watt.
Excellent video. I like the example of piano strings to illustrate the frequency / wave length relationship.
Also, I used to regularly talk on a repeater 50 miles away, but it was such luck. There was a certain spot in a downstairs room which for some unknown reason used to reach it.
I got 12 km from inside my house to inside my car in the middle of a village with 2 legal (not modified in any way) PMR446 with 0.5Watt.
As a participant on an activation I got 22 km with my radio being the same as in the previous example (I have no idea what the other guys were using).
With the same radios I also lost contact after being just over 500 meters away, so...
I find these discussions interesting but not very reallistic.
The real answer will always be it varies.
But much of the fun in radios is in playing around with them and trying.
I've gotten well over 90+ miles on my Anytone D-878UVII+ doing a SOTA activation in Colorado using a Smiley half-wave dipole on 2m.
That was fun! This is probably the only thing my dad could talk about. My dad bought a Telefunken at the PX in Turkey (no TV) but it was the best fun we ever had. It was more fun watching him search the frequencies on the bands. And shhhh shhhh listen.
Great video.. You can go further than 100mi as well.. I was able to work a repeater over 181 miles away.. (Willits, CA to San Jose, CA) .. Helps to be at the top of the mountain..
I made a 2m simplex voice QSO with a mobile 125 miles away from atop Grandfather Mtn NC using an old RS HTX100 doing 1/10w into the stock compact rubber duck. They said I was noisy but readable. I hadn't broken their squelch, but the person I was speaking to closer by had, and they opened up and called to let me know how far my fleea-power rig was reaching. It was a clear summer late morning; had there been clouds or fog it would not have happened. Same if they had been in a city or later in the day when diurnal heating caused background static.
It's as much about the receiver and conditions as anything else. When things are right it takes no power; when things are against you almost no amount of power can overcome them. You can't work 'em if you can't hear 'em!
Today, for reference, I was able to hit a repeater on 70 cm 9.75 miles away on a Yaesu FT3D with a Dual Band Signal Stick at 5 watts. This was in Central Florida just west of Orlando.
I showed this video to my family, better then me explain all the technology to them, you made it very (kiss) simple. Thank you. Great video.
Great stuff as always! That satellite video is almost exactly 1 year old. See you next week Josh!
Back in 2020 I spoke to one of the astronauts on the IS. So, if you are counting that it was around 220 miles. Now if you are taking a out avarage without a repeater a 50 watt radio can easily talk about 25 to 50 miles depending on terrain but even in the flat lands of Kansas you can talk at times over 100 mile on 2 meters. This is not tippcial, again it depends on weather and how hight the other antenna might be...
Thank you for your information, im in the process of receiving my Baofeng radio and soon I’ll apply for the tech license.
Love the intro, thank you!!! Strangely, the honestly made me watch the whole thing
When I was building cell towers, we would use $20 Wal-Mart radios. When aiming dishes between towers, I have used those radios 75 miles apart and had perfect reception between them. So location is absolutely crucial when talking range. Thanks for the videos.
Good stuff, Josh. But I'm going to head over to Randy's channel to see how many farrs he thinks a Baofeng can squirt electricities.
😂
Jejejeje
Josh, I just took my test for Technician and passed. I am 69. I also attended my first local club meeting which to my surprise had a very large audience of Hams in attendance. Many were 40+ years Hams. More than a few who had been enjoying the hobby for decades cautioned me regarding my first radio and suggested I first attend our local swap event. Part of their advice stems from their observation excellent older Icom and Kenwood handhelds are seen for sale at very reasonable prices. Many of these men suggested I avoid Chinese radios in lieu of picking up a used Icom or Kenwood. Would you be able to discuss this topic on your channel or older models handhelds which would make good entry radios?
Thanks, that kind of helped me with making some choices on what to buy. I was thinking I'd need a digital hotspot. Now I know for sure I will. None of the digital repeators in my area are close enough for an HT
I live on an island covered in mountains. My local repeater is almost 5000' up, and I can easily find places my little 20W mobile with a 1/4 wave antenna will not hit even though I am within 20km of the repeater, due to trees and mountains. But from the exact same location I can hit a repeater 110kms north of me, because that repeater is also something like 4900ft and just a smidge to the east, so it clears the mountain range. It's all a part of a trunked repeater system, 9 or more repeaters that span roughly 700kms and can repeat to each other, VHF and UHF would be pretty useless otherwise! Soo much terrain and trees that it kills HT signals quick! Also remember 3dB of gain is like doubling the power of your transmitter too.
I'm in the foothills and mountains of SC where terrain can block you easily. Got to know the lay of the land and where the repeaters are so you can find one you can hit. There are still some places where you can't hit anything on 6 or 2 or 440 or 1296 no matter how much power you've got; just walk or drive1/4 mile and you're good again. cellphones do worse.
I have 3 SOTA Contacts 204 miles away from the same summit from Long Beach. I talk every morning on a repeater over 40 miles away. 15 inch antenna.
My best distance from a walkie-talkie was 200 miles; from Lick Observatory near San Jose to a repeater east of Bakersfield. Antenna was an AEA "hotrod" telescoping 5/8 wave antenna which I still have all these many years later.
The abbreviation EME should be a hint.
BTW, you might want to use the term 'Line of Sight', or LOS repeatedly, and explain that RF is basically 'light' we can't see.
Thanks
Always worth dropping by the HRCC coffee shop to hear the chatter - thank you!
I got 45 km on a QuanSheng UV-K5, From Shuangyue Bay,Huizhou to Wutong Mountain,Shenzheng.
About 175 miles on 5 watt-2M FT-60R, Mount Washington, New Hampshire to Bangor Maine.
Been a ham since the late 80's and that was a great description.
2 part question #1 what is the most powerful, versatile home base ham radio on the market? #2 What is the most powerful, versatile mobile radio you would match it with? Thank you
My answer. In theory, it can transmit throughout the entire universe.
UV5R at 5W easily makes contacts to the ISS (with the right antenna).
That was a very quick response.
Man I don’t get to take my test until the 18th and it’s driving me crazy just listening to people talk. I want to talk to!
Just want to say great video. Will send a link to my son who is new to ham radio. Always good to have a to the point explanation. Thanks.
Steve, k7ofg
True story. Baofeng through a Yaggi from a ridge to an island repeater, 40+ miles away. No problem. 50-watt base station to a closer mountain top, with a little hill in the way, troubles... Atmospherics do affect UHF signals when trying to get around hills. (Sometimes it will be good, sometimes it will be bad.)
Summary:
- VHF and UHF are line of sight (LOS) only because they can't bounce off the atmosphere.
- If two people on the ground are more than 3 miles apart, the curvature of the earth will mean LOS gets obstructed because the earth is in the way.
- If one or both radios is elevated sufficiently above the surface of the earth, then the earth will no longer be in the way, so you get LOS back, so the radios work again.
- Of course, other stuff aside from the earth can also get in the way, like trees and buildings. Or parts of the earth that may be closer than 3 miles, like hills and mountains.
* There's a bit more complexity because for physics reasons the "line" isn't really a line but more of a sort of long thin almond shape, so basically even stuff that's just *near* the line can still effectively be "in the way."
- Anyway, absent obstructions, there's almost no limit to how far a radio signal can go. It just becomes a game of tradeoffs between power and noise. With enough wattage and a noise-tolerant protocol, you can bounce VHF and UHF radio signals off the moon (over 200K miles away). This is called EME, which I should really get around to working one of these days since the FCC gods blessed me with it in my callsign // KN6EME
what antenna does he have on the radio at 9:30? It looks like a signal stuff but shorter. Are you available?
Yes, it's a 70cm Signal Stick, link their site in the description.
Great video Josh. Thank you for not just saying "it depends".
If you want line of sight, then UHF/VHF is your cup of tea. If you want to talk around the world, then you have to go low...I mean HF. Last night, after sunset on the west coast of the U.S., Italy, and some Balkan States were open on 20 meters. When a couple neighborhood kids wandered over yesterday evening, we talked to a person near Lake Oroville in California on 40 meters using QRP while I live in northern Nevada. We also listened to the UTC clock at 10.000 MHz on 30 meters out of Denver. So yesterday, I talked to a couple of folk on the local repeater using 2 meters. A couple of folk literally half a world away, and then listened to a clock in Denver, half a continent, and a big mountain range away. 73, KB7QOD
Well, this morning on 40 meters, I caught a round table (not a net) based out of Reno, Nevada, where I live. I was pushing 100w. I had one of the guys in Montana at 9+20. I could not hear the two Reno operators. They were in the dust, about S3 (just above background noise). They couldn't hear me either. However, on 2 meters, we talked. Obviously the ham in Montana and I did not talk on 2 meters.
Omg thank you for the answer. I'm going to watch and follow just because.
You got an upvote after 5 seconds.
Thank you!
I watched it all anyway :)
Wow, thanks!
I'm 10 seconds in but because of your intro, i will watch the full video, respect
Thank you!
brilliant start to the video
Straight to the point! Keep up the good work!
I live in Fresno, middle of the Central Valley, with my 9700 at 100w on 2m I can hit repeaters that are 100 miles away no problem. SSB and FT8 will go a bit father… now if there is tropo ducking things can get interesting.
Superb. Excellent radiosplanatiom.
Many thanks!
i use the baofeng uv5trp and with 7+ watts of power i can talk 45 miles with regular antenna . if i go in the woods with trouble getting out i use the abbree 1 meter antenna and amplify my signal what seems like 10 fold over the 6 inch.
All new hams need to watch this…. Great video
Thanks!
It's line of site. You can talk to the international space station on a hand held.
I just started learning about Ham Radio ( bought a Baofeng last month). After what happened in Maui, any recommendations of setting up something quickly or being a hub in an emergency situation to communicated to emergency services/loved ones? Perhaps a short video of what to do to even be a listener or to connect to emergency services without transmitting witha license.Unfortunately what is going on in Maui is an example of how quickly we can lose power and cell phone service in minutes. Thank you and pray for Maui.
"How Far Can A Ham Radio Transmit?"
All the way to Alpha Centauri, 4 lights years from Earth. It takes 4 years for the signal to arrive so be patient waiting for a response.
I had my handheld on a mountain. % Watts. I hit a repeater on another mountain 120 miles away.
That's Great Info. Thanks Brother.
thats a pretty old t shirt... I only know because I have the same one lol. Great video
Great video, thank you- Ken
Well, my Baofeng technically went to space and back 😅
KQ4KJL Your explanation of higher and lower bands vrs higher and lower frequency was terrific. Little by slow for this newbie. I get what you're saying about antennas, atmosphere and obstacles. Thanks for this video. It really helps.
learning a lot, thanks
I already sent to friends who have asked some of these questions
A better quality HT does a MUCH better job of pulling weak signals out than the UV5R. Even the baofeng GT3TP does a noticeably better job. That equates to more distance you can transmit to eachother.
I am interested in this type of radio due to the fact of during 9/11 when the phones went down all I had was a CB radio to keep in contact with other truck drivers while I was on the road I'd like to have something where I can reach out to my son who lives in North Carolina I live in Maryland so I wonder if that radio would be able to speak to him all the way down there in North Carolina
This was very helpful. Thank you!
You're very welcome!
Excellent video
Curious. Couldn’t/wouldn’t the quality of the receiving circuitry also have a big effector the range of a hand held (HT) radio? And thank you for doing this video! I found it very helpful.
Sir, amazing intro 👏
Being at the basement of my apartment is probably why my Baofeng can’t reach a thing. 😂
Time to go drive to a hill! Maybe there’s a nearby park I can drive to.
Yes indeed!
Not to mention communicating hundreds of miles via an Amateur Radio satellite, even with an HT and 5 watts!
Liking and subbing just for the intro
I was hiking up some mountains in the Adirondacks of NY and could RX a repeater near Troy NY wirh my FT3DR and a rubber duck. I believe it was almost 100 miles. I didn't know the tone so i don't know if i could have hit it on TX.
You likely could not have hit it with a HT.
Wow! Straight to the point!
Lol, yes.
@@HamRadioCrashCourse I only said it because you did. Good enough video to watch twice
That dig was HILARIOUS.
😅.
Thanks for the video Josh!
No dig. I love that NotARubicon. 🤙
No dig. I love that NotARubicon. 🤙
Great video, Josh. Thanks! You kind of hit on it at the end, but in terms of power, more power basically just means more capability to overcome signal absorption/attenuation?
i.e. just an example, but everything else being equal, if 5W gets me through 5’ of concrete walls, 50W could get me through 50’?
The inverse square law applies so a doubling of distance needs four times the power; triple the distance needs 9 times the power, and so on. Your example is 10 times the power so about 3.1 times the thickness of the barrier.
Concrete isn't that much of a barrier but if there's steel re-bar in the concrete that's nearly a complete barrier. Interestingly, it is sensitive to polarity; if you were to hold the antenna opposite to the orientation of the rebar it would penetrate better (if I remember right). If the antenna is oriented the same way as the rebar it will couple the energy into the rebar.
Anyway, this is why a 100 watt HF radio doesn't get you all that much more range than a 10 watt radio; in theory about 3 times the distance with ten times the power. But where your signal comes back down to Earth is not really in your control so where it comes down might be strong and it might be weak but it will be the same distance.
My current record is 180 km on 1 W with a UV-5R (summit to summit)
I'm a ham with the super old Advanced class license and I mostly just listen and keep up my license every ten years. Mostly I just stay ready for emergencies if needed. I rarely get on and talk to anybody, not that type of a hobby for me and I don't see ham as entertainment and fun like most. One thing I notice is that I can almost always tell when hams are on those cheap CHICOM pinko radios like Baofeng or whatever they call them. Even with a full quieting signal to a repeater they sound like crap. Usually under-deviating or just sound muffled or distorted. For God's sake can hams spend a little money on a radio any more? I'm on a retirement income and I only buy known and famous brand radios, despite high costs. I'm going to buy the new (but really old) remake of the Kenwood that is soon to come out. And it costs a small fortune but I'm not homeless so I can afford it. I forget the model of it but it has full power 220 VHF on it. Very nice. Don't care at all about the new digital modes because I don't even talk much on analog, let alone any newer modes. BTW, I finally found out that what some folks are doing on the barely used 220 band in my neck of the woods!! At least in the rare instance it does get used. Seems like it's seen as a clandestine band where some people with no license or expired licenses get on and think they are being sneaky because they are not monitored by many people. I happened to hear a conversation on a 220 repeater (a rarity) and happened to start looking up call signs. One guys call sign checked out but one was using a call sign that does not exist in the FCC database and has never been issued. Ah Ha!!
How about the range difference between handheld ham/bofang vs CB comparable? And the same for mobile/automobile CB vs Ham for cars/trucks?
Woah, what was that short signal stick looking antenna ? Please forgive my ignorance..
70cm signal stick.
Oh, awesome!