Hi all, 

I have been following this discussion with interest.  In my experience, I
would have to say that I agree with Butch.  Another thing to consider is
the antenna.  All the power that one could muster would not serve anyone if
the antennas' proper performance isn't taken into consideration.  

 

Michael Dane:
W7ALX:
Lincoln County Emergency Communications:
{City of} Depoe Bay:
Emergency Operations.

-----Original Message-----
From: For blind ham radio operators [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
On Behalf Of Butch Bussen
Sent: Thursday, March 18, 2010 9:50 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: please advise on accessable 2 meter radio

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
>>>
>>>
>
>