CA Kayaker wrote: > > Doug: > Keep in mind that VHF is "Line of Sight". Regardless of the power rating, > sitting in a kayak with a hand held VHF radio with short rubber duck > antenna will make for short transmit distances. You will find that even > talking to another kayaker over a short distance may become a > problem. Increase in transmission power is of little help in these > cases. This seems to be what is said but I wonder how correct this is, I mean line of sight. When I first got my radio, I tuned it on and was able to get marine traffic out on the Hudson and East Rivers. I live in a Westside brownstone, i.e. a low building in a neighborhood increasingly surrounded by tall apartment buildings, the result of our booming economy and people having money to burn on luxury dwellings with views. I have no direct line of sight with the river particularly with the NY Waterways ferries I hear traffic calls from. And the East River is well across town with a two mile wide swatch of tall buildings between me and it. And I hear that river traffic too. This makes me think that there is also a bounce and reflect signal aspect too. Clearly, if you are sitting deep in a valley with mountains completely surrounding you, you will not likely hear from one in the next deep valley. But with buildings and streets you must get some bouncing around effect. I would think that the same would hold in open water along coastlines where a signal would bounce off this little hill to another little hill and reach someone well out of your line of sight. Maybe as you say, Coast Guard repeater stations help out. But given the cost of NY real estate and the configuration of buildings I doubt if I am benefiting from a repeater station while in the middle of my concrete and steel jungle of the city. ralph diaz -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Ralph Diaz . . . Folding Kayaker newsletter PO Box 0754, New York, NY 10024 Tel: 212-724-5069; E-mail: rdiaz_at_ix.netcom.com "Where's your sea kayak?"----"It's in the bag." ----------------------------------------------------------------------- *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Thu Feb 03 2000 - 10:08:07 PST
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