There is a common misconception about the value of transmitting power and reception. "A dime on the antenna is worth a dollar on the radio" is one of the basic precepts. I used to talk from Virginia to Europe using 1/3 of a watt. I had a huge antenna set up for this purpose. When you increase the power 3 fold (or is it 4 fold) it will only make 1 unit difference on your signal meter...from S7 to S8. The only time that will be critical is when it takes you out of the noise floor and makes you audible. With typical environmental noise (audio) it's unlikely a weak signal would be audible even if just above the noise floor. The 1/2 wave antenna is excellent for marine use because it doesn't require an additional ground plane. The radio functions as the ground plane when using a duckie, which is less then ideal. The lack of a decent ground is what would make a co-linear perform poorly in a glass or plastic boat. The better antennas improve the effective power by flattening out the radiation pattern concentrating more of the 5 watts at the horizon and less at the sky. There are inexpensive portable 3 and 4 element VHF yagi antennas (TV antenna style) which are portable and could be useful for campsites if hitting the weather transmitter is a problem. Hope this is useful! cya W2PN *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.gasp-seakayak.net/paddlewise/ ***************************************************************************Received on Mon Jan 11 1999 - 12:46:12 PST
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