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Best setup for reliable radio communications over 30 or 60 miles?

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bmw
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Best setup for reliable radio communications over 30 or 60 miles?

Post by bmw » Sat Dec 26, 2020 10:55 am

So yesterday on Christmas, 2 family members of mine (who live roughly 60 miles apart straight-line distance) get to talking about various world affairs, and one of them out of the blue asks me (being the tech geek in the family) if things were to get really bad, like, to the point of there no longer being cell, landline, or internet communications - then what is the best ham radio (they did use that term "ham" ) so that they can communicate with each other reliably over that 60-mile stretch?

So then I end up google searching and quickly into the rabbit hole of ham radio and frequencies, antennas, band conditions, power requirements, legal vs. illegal setups (illegal examples being "export" modded CB radios that operate with more power and out of band), etc, etc, etc. And my conclusion after reading many forum posts and various articles is that at a 60-mile distance (esp. in the state of Michigan with all of our trees), "reliable" communication at that distance would require a significantly sized antenna, a ham license, and a pretty high-end radio at each end of the link. Using repeaters is out of the question since they would be unreliable in the situation described.

My question to the radio techies in here - IS 60 miles doable? And if so, I assume VHF is out of the question and that it would have to be somewhere in the HF band? How big of an antenna would be necessary, and what is the best band to use?

Follow-up question - the 2 people who asked me about this, when I drew a line on a map, I noticed have another family member who lives literally right on that line and right in the middle. Is a setup of having 3 people linked together, with one person in the middle and 2 people each 30 miles away in opposite directions more practical? And can that middle person set up the equivalent of a repeater such that the 2 people on the ends can communicate directly with each other?



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TC Talks
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Re: Best setup for reliable radio communications over 30 or 60 miles?

Post by TC Talks » Sat Dec 26, 2020 12:34 pm

Commercial two way can do a hop like that with enough height. What does the topo look like?

If you're all apocalypse, don't worry about being licensed, get a ham unit. The community repeaters will be maintained during any weekend warrior revolution.


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bmw
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Re: Best setup for reliable radio communications over 30 or 60 miles?

Post by bmw » Sat Dec 26, 2020 1:11 pm

I'm personally not in the apoc camp - my interest in this is more of a "challenge" as in, can it be done. But I do agree - I assume that in a true "apocalypse" scenario that FCC rules go right out the window. But I do assume this would be the scenario for usage of such a setup (though not "weekend warrior revolution" as you describe it - more just a means of communication).

I would still prefer to leave repeaters out of the equation. Topography map is as follows:

Image



k8jd
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Re: Best setup for reliable radio communications over 30 or 60 miles?

Post by k8jd » Sat Dec 26, 2020 2:43 pm

Since VHF or UHF is only reliable on a line-of-sight at any given moment, And HIgh towers and fancy "gain antennas" are required,
I would choose the 60 M HF band , where you can use a simple wire dipole, (my 88 ft long dipole is hanging in trees around 30 ft up) no tower or big complicated aluminum Yagi antenna to get a good reliable patrh 30-60 miles over any terain.
The path is NVIS , up to the ionosphere and nearly straight back down. ..I have had contacts in daylight or night over those distances, on 60 M, with very strong signals. I usually operate on 5332 or 5348 kHz. Many of the ops I contact are running as little as 5 Watts output power. .
You Need to take exam for Amateur radio license , at least General class to operate here. Even in a disaster it pays to be legal.



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Re: Best setup for reliable radio communications over 30 or 60 miles?

Post by WOHO » Sat Dec 26, 2020 5:06 pm

60 meter is relegated to just five 'channels' isn't it? And I think it is secondary, so you would have a maximum of 200 watts PEP, rather than the full-bore 1500W, PEP, correct? Can you use any mode: CW, LSB, USB, AM, digital modes, or is it limited to SSB voice?



innate-in-you
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Re: Best setup for reliable radio communications over 30 or 60 miles?

Post by innate-in-you » Sun Dec 27, 2020 12:00 am

bmw wrote:
Sat Dec 26, 2020 10:55 am
So yesterday on Christmas, 2 family members of mine (who live roughly 60 miles apart straight-line distance) get to talking about various world affairs, and one of them out of the blue asks me (being the tech geek in the family) if things were to get really bad, like, to the point of there no longer being cell, landline, or internet communications - then what is the best ham radio (they did use that term "ham" ) so that they can communicate with each other reliably over that 60-mile stretch?

So then I end up google searching and quickly into the rabbit hole of ham radio and frequencies, antennas, band conditions, power requirements, legal vs. illegal setups (illegal examples being "export" modded CB radios that operate with more power and out of band), etc, etc, etc. And my conclusion after reading many forum posts and various articles is that at a 60-mile distance (esp. in the state of Michigan with all of our trees), "reliable" communication at that distance would require a significantly sized antenna, a ham license, and a pretty high-end radio at each end of the link. Using repeaters is out of the question since they would be unreliable in the situation described.

My question to the radio techies in here - IS 60 miles doable? And if so, I assume VHF is out of the question and that it would have to be somewhere in the HF band? How big of an antenna would be necessary, and what is the best band to use?

Follow-up question - the 2 people who asked me about this, when I drew a line on a map, I noticed have another family member who lives literally right on that line and right in the middle. Is a setup of having 3 people linked together, with one person in the middle and 2 people each 30 miles away in opposite directions more practical? And can that middle person set up the equivalent of a repeater such that the 2 people on the ends can communicate directly with each other?
80m single-sideband may do the job in the daytime. 40 could also work.

Why would a repeater be out of the question?

A repeater equidistant you and your desired party could easily work if the repeater were half way between you and the 60-mile distant party.



Deleted User 14896

Re: Best setup for reliable radio communications over 30 or 60 miles?

Post by Deleted User 14896 » Sun Dec 27, 2020 2:14 am

BMW:

You say these folks are 60 miles apart. The typographical you posted is 100 miles wide. Before I give my answer, could you mark on your typo map just where the interested parties are?



Deleted User 14896

Re: Best setup for reliable radio communications over 30 or 60 miles?

Post by Deleted User 14896 » Sun Dec 27, 2020 2:32 am

innate-in-you wrote:
Sun Dec 27, 2020 12:00 am
Why would a repeater be out of the question?

A repeater equidistant you and your desired party could easily work if the repeater were half way between you and the 60-mile distant party.
I think he wants to stay away from a repeater due to machines going down due to SHTF.

Like I asked him, I'm curious where on his terrain chart the people are. I myself can get into the Bowling Green Ohio 2M machine with a homemade j-pole, with the tip about 45' in the air. I just looked, That's an 80 mile drive from my QTH. As the crow flies would be somewhat shorter but I'm thinking not much.

But Bowling Green to my QTH is pretty much flatland. Both Toledo and Monroe are east of a direct shot between me and Bowling Green. So it would depend on terrain.



bmw
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Re: Best setup for reliable radio communications over 30 or 60 miles?

Post by bmw » Sun Dec 27, 2020 10:59 am

The graph I posted is in kilometers, not miles - mile conversion is about 59 miles. The 2 interested parties are at the exact endpoints (give or take a few hundred meters). The 3rd possible party is very close to the middle of that graph and roughly 1 mile out of line with it.



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Re: Best setup for reliable radio communications over 30 or 60 miles?

Post by SolarMax » Sun Dec 27, 2020 1:03 pm

I also would not recommend the 60M band (5MHz). Its five channels are shared with US government and military users who at any time can declare primacy and run any users off. It's also a decent DX band at night, which could be a problem for doing short-range comms.
As mentioned, the 40 and 75M ham bands, using NVIS antennas would be usable, though subject to summer storm "static" (QRN) usually lightning, from both near and far away, and also accidental or intentional interference (QRM) by other operators (many of whom, these days, are less than courteous toward anyone encroaching on what they claim to be "their" frequencies).
There is a difference between Reliable and Usable. I would never consider or expect any amateur band frequency to be consistently "reliable," as a backup system.
If there is interest in keeping it all legal, there's the necessity of getting all the participants properly licensed. While it's not terribly difficult, some still do find it so, or don't want to go through the bother. Also, getting proper antennas up and optimized is best done by someone who knows what they're doing.
Seems like GMRS might be the best tool for this job, though for a 60 mile hop, it would probably involve setting up a private repeater somewhere midway, maybe solar powered.
Last edited by SolarMax on Sun Dec 27, 2020 5:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.



Deleted User 14896

Re: Best setup for reliable radio communications over 30 or 60 miles?

Post by Deleted User 14896 » Sun Dec 27, 2020 3:15 pm

bmw wrote:
Sun Dec 27, 2020 10:59 am
The graph I posted is in kilometers, not miles - mile conversion is about 59 miles. The 2 interested parties are at the exact endpoints (give or take a few hundred meters). The 3rd possible party is very close to the middle of that graph and roughly 1 mile out of line with it.
I don't know an answer. If it was just two stations, I'd suggest trying the NVIS that K8JD talked about. But I'm thinking the one in the middle may not hear the ends, and vice versa.

Myself (and mostly because I got enough stuff to try it), I'd see how 2 meters with 40' high verticals would play. Many of the police and fire in the hills of Appalachia use VHF to cover a whole county without a repeater. If VHF don't work, drop down to six and 10 meters simplex. But like I said, I'm just throwing stuff out there. Not saying these are definitive answers.



bmw
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Re: Best setup for reliable radio communications over 30 or 60 miles?

Post by bmw » Mon Dec 28, 2020 12:16 pm

How well do signals propagate via groundwave at 11 meters? Specifically, 25.6 to 26.1 MHZ looks like an interesting chunk of spectrum as it is the 11m broadcast band but from what research I've done this band appears to literally be deserted with the last 2 international broadcasters who operated in this band (25740 Deutsche Welle and 25820 R. France International) having abandoned the band sometime between 2001 and 2014. Outside of occasional DRM testing (and apparently some taxi cabs and trucking companies), this band is basically a ghost town and seemingly a good candidate for being ignored completely by the FCC.

I also like that a half-wavelength antenna here need only be about 18 feet long.



Deleted User 14896

Re: Best setup for reliable radio communications over 30 or 60 miles?

Post by Deleted User 14896 » Mon Dec 28, 2020 12:51 pm

bmw wrote:
Mon Dec 28, 2020 12:16 pm
How well do signals propagate via groundwave at 11 meters? Specifically, 25.6 to 26.1 MHZ ....
Well, my last post I talked about police and fire in the hills and hollers of Appalachia being on VHF.
Before they were there, they were all on the low bands. 38-42 MHz. Think of the big long whip on Andy and Barney's cruiser.
And they would talk hundreds of miles. Many of the counties and the state was all on the same channel.
They'd all talk back and forth with each other across half the state.

So the old low bands were not far at all from 11 meters. Something to try anyway.



k8jd
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Re: Best setup for reliable radio communications over 30 or 60 miles?

Post by k8jd » Mon Dec 28, 2020 3:12 pm

Direct wave on 27 MHz does not get much more than 20 miles and you need high power (a lot more than the 5 W legal power) and directional antennas to reach the radio horizon/ NVIS has been the best solution I have experienced , on 3-5 MHz , the result is pretty reliable , good overall coverage in the entire area covered. No skip zone in the middle as someone suggested.



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Re: Best setup for reliable radio communications over 30 or 60 miles?

Post by SolarMax » Mon Dec 28, 2020 5:59 pm

Mike Oxlong wrote:
Mon Dec 28, 2020 12:51 pm
...I talked about police and fire in the hills and hollers of Appalachia being on VHF.
Before they were there, they were all on the low bands. 38-42 MHz. Think of the big long whip on Andy and Barney's cruiser.
And they would talk hundreds of miles. Many of the counties and the state was all on the same channel.
They'd all talk back and forth with each other across half the state.

So the old low bands were not far at all from 11 meters. Something to try anyway.
The "hundreds of miles" stuff only happened when there was favorable propagation, usually during the middle and peak years of a sunspot cycle. For those users, the hundreds of miles stuff came with an inability to talk to their own close-in units. And you don't want Hundreds of Miles, you want 60, reliably. As jd mentions, direct or "ground wave" distance on the higher HF/low VHF freqs is skimpy, and when the "skip" is in due to either F or E-layer or sporadic-E, DX (distance) is what you get. Great if you're after that. Otherwise, no.
I still favor a VHF or UHF, amateur or GMRS, with a repeater, solution. I don't think I saw the amateur 222-225 MHz band offered. Lightly used in most areas.
Back to the licensing issue, if the amateur bands are considered, licensed operators and control operators have to be aware of content guidelines, particularly the prohibition of the service being used for any commercial purposes.



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