Where should I go?

[Toro]

Greetings all. I have become recently interested in amateur radio. I have picked up a few books and now I'm working on studying for my test.
My questions lay in my intended use. I off road a lot and often find myself far out of CB range. This of course puts me in ham territory for emergency communications.
As long as I'm going ham, would it be possible to have communications to my home? I guess I need to ask, what meter would need to be on to two way about 200-300 miles away? Would 2 meter be enough for me?
I like the idea of saying good night to my kids if I'm out camping for the weekend.
I will most likely be on a mobile unit but would like to get away with a HT.
This is all I will be using it for (for now). Basically a 300mile frs radio.

Thanks

[Medicineball]

You are not going to get that kind of distance on 2 meters unless you are able to make use of repeaters between you and your family. There are frequencies that will take you that far, and there are others on this board that broadcast that distance regularly and can give you good advice about the kind of antenna you'll need as well. Don't forget, if you want to say goodnight to your kids (and you want them to be able to answer) someone at the other end will need to be licensed as well.

[K2CLH]

I would say 10 meters would do it for sure, but 6 meters with a 100 watts would also do it if you are thinking simplex(no repeaters). If you could use repeaters you could use a mobile 2 meter rig with 50 watts to a repeater 75 miles away with a decent antenna(but that would be 150 miles because your house could talk the same distance).

10 meters would be the best but 6 meters could also do it with maybe even 50 watts without a repeater(the advantage of a repeater is it doubles your range because each only has to talk half as far(assuming that the repeater is half way in between you).

Hope this helps 73,
K2CLH
(nine years old)

[K2CLH]

Sorry for two posts. I forgot to say, a technician will get you everything down to 10 meters and with 10 meters you can talk 5000+ miles(I talked from Idaho to the Southern Hemesphire with a good signal report).

[AB3NK]

I'm sorry here but these people are blowing smoke up your butt.
Most everything these people are telling you is bull.
Effective communications is line of sight.
Line of sight - in reference to a digital television signal is about 48 miles.
Lets keep in mind that a television broadcast tower is usually placed at the place which takes the most advantage of the height of the local terrain.
Hence you don't put a television transmitter in your backyard because you own the land, you put it on top of a mountain someplace where you don't have to buy as much tower and can gain height by the elevation of the land that you put it on.

At the same time - line of sight visual is about 48 miles - only if you build two towers 1000 feet tall and you climb to the top of the one and look out at the light blinking on the top of the other.

Fortunately radio waves are of a different length then radio waves, hence they travel further over the horizon.
Radio waves can be bent, they can refract, they can diffract all different things, but you cannot count on your signal going much over the horizon.

REguardless of the amount of power that you use, once your LOS is lost, you have to rely on something that your signal can bounce off of to make it back to where you intend it to go. How many people can count on there being a fog bank and clouds between their home QTH and their location every time they go some place.

Once your signal becomes two edge - you need to rely on a hop, E hops are probably somewhere in the area of 500 - 1500 per each hop depending on conditions.

That means that you can have someone 100 miles away with a 1000 watt transmitter on 10 meters and not be able to hear them, but can have someone 1000 miles away with a 100 watt transmitter and be able to hear them if the atmospheric and solar conditions are perfect.

You can have a signal travel 1000 miles in one direction, lets use Nebraska USA as a example, and not be able to hear someone in Florida 500 miles away.
It might not make sense to you right now.

Usually your best bet with a mobile is 40 meters.
Your problem is - you cannot talk to your wife or kids unless they possess a ham radio license or have someone at the QTH which is a licensed ham so they can operate your station.

The bottom line is - you got a lot to learn here and no one to teach you these things.

My advice, instead of memorizing the answers to the test, is to take each question and research it and find out the reason why it is on the test and find out what the answer to the question is and learn enough about it that when someone asks you how radio works, you can answer any question they ask you.

As a plain example, I have a 50 watt Yaesu 8900 Mobile radio with a Larsen 1/4 wave antenna on my vehicle.
Today I was traveling between a doctors appointment and home and hit a repeater 50 miles away.
My signal was strong enough to break the squelch, but not strong enough to carry on a conversation when I went down in a valley, even when I was only 40 miles away from the repeater.

The repeater was up on Rockton Mountain - Clearfield County, Pennsylvania on a 150' tower with a 100 watt transmitter with a 8 db gain antenna.
Rockton Mountain - aka Clearfield Mountain is the highest point east of the Mississippi river in the USA along I 80.

With that transmitter antenna and elevation, you should be able to talk the whole way to North Carolina if the band conditions were perfect. Maryland 100 miles away - with no problems even if the band conditions were not perfect.
Yet the leaves in the trees, the needles in the pine trees, the terrain was sucking up most of the signal going in both directions.

In order to have a better signal, I would need a better antenna with more gain and enough height to get the antenna above the treeline in both directions - hence a 1000' tower.

Unfortunately - no one could afford to build a 1000' tower or carry around a repeater antenna or a HyGain Yagi, so working mobile, it is what it is.

10 meters would do no better in that situation - even with open band conditions.
You might be able to be heard 1000 miles away with a 100 watt transmitter, SSB with a 1/4 wave antenna on a Chevrolet Surburban with a properly bonded body and frame, but not 50 miles away. It just don't work like that. Especially during the day time.

6 meters would be even better, if the transmit and the receive antenna's were in a very high location.

20 meters - probably not.

40 meters - maybe.

Do some research here before you jump in with both feet.

[G4LNA]

And don't forget to back it up with a cell phone or a sat phone, HF radio is notoriously fickle at best or no communication at worst.

[G6NHU]

40m using relatively low aerials optimised for NVIS _should_ do it. For a mobile that's surprisingly easy to do with a nice long whip aerial that's tied back so it's parallel to the ground. Use a smart tuner to match it and you'd probably work that couple of hundred miles with ease.

The idea is that with a low aerial parallel to the earth, your signal will go pretty much straight up and be reflected back down in a fairly close area to where you're transmitting from. It's a technique the military use a lot.

Of course, nothing is guaranteed. If the sun farts then you're knackered.