We'll have to agree to disagree.  I've been a ham since 1968 and worked 
in the commercial field selling and have worked with broadcast engineers 
and the db argument holds true.  I can guarantee you going from say 40 
watts to 60 watts won't even be noticeable.  I also have a service 
monitor and I can feed anything from a tenth of a mocrovolt to whatever 
into a receiver, checked sinad and so forth.  In fm it just doesn't make 
that much difference.  There is a lot of other things much more 
important, deviation, audio clipping, type of fm detector and so forth. 
Most radios these days use a quadro detector which is cheap, but not 
nearly as good at eliminating  noise as the discriminator, but that is 
another story.

As I said, we'll just have to agree to disagree on this.
73
Butch Bussen
wa0vjr
open Node 3148
Las Vegas


On Thu, 18 Mar 
2010, Mark wrote:

> Hi
>     In my twenty years experience with ham radio, every watt counts. Even
> if it is a fraction of a DB. The thing is that all to often a person is
> operating on the edge of reliable communications range. So, even one watt
> can make or break that kind of radio communications. I have listened for
> years about the DB gain argument and it just does not work in my experience.
>
> God bless,
> Mark WZ0K
> Jesus Is Lord!
> Pendleton Redeemer
> http://pendletonepiscopal.org/
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Butch Bussen" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Thursday, March 18, 2010 8:18 AM
> Subject: Re: please advise on accessable 2 meter radio
>
>
>> Why do you say 60 watts plus?  If you had a 40 watt radio and doubled it
>> to 80, you only gain 3db, and I'd bet you couldn't hear the difference.
>> Power is nice, but much over rated.  I on only use dual band radios
>> these days and you can't beat the Kenwood tmv-71a.  Here is something to
>> think about as far as power.  1 watt to ten watts, is a ten db gain,
>> certainly noticeable.  to get that same gain again, you need to go
>> another ten times, so you go from ten to 100 watts.  10 to 50 watts, is
>> 7 db gain, and that is certainly noticeable, but You have to make quite
>> a jump from 50 watts to see any difference.
>> 73
>> Butch Bussen
>> wa0vjr
>> open Node 3148
>> Las Vegas
>>
>>
>> On Thu, 18 Mar 2010, Jaco
>> Lubbe wrote:
>>
>>> I need a blind friendly 2 meter radio.
>>> At least 60 watts plus
>>> Must be a mobile radio.
>>> I will be using it for motor cross rallies.
>>> Please advise
>>> Jaco Lubbe
>>> Pretoria
>>> South Africa
>>> Call sign:  ZR6JLL
>>>
>>>
>
>