[Scarecrow]

Originally Posted by LUTNIT

So at games like at zone27 and the dogs pit in Montreal, when I am on the opposite side of the hill that is several stories tall, obviously completely blocking LoS and I can still transmit and receive 100% without any static with GMRS, I'm imagining things?

EDIT: Now I see what you're saying here - Yes your right you get some bounce - but when I made that statement I was thinking AM vs FM and FM bounce is nothing like AM bounce. To hammers, FM is largely considered 'bounceless'

No actually you're not. Different brands of radio have antennas with slightly different gains at different frequencies - its natural to get variation, and also you can get some bounce, even in FRS and GMRS frequencies within or around terrain - but you don't get a lot because those freqs get absorbed more easily then say AM band, which bounces a lot more. That isn't to say you don't get any bounce from FRS/GMRS.

Originally Posted by LUTNIT

What about the differences between 0.1W, 0.5W, 1W, and 3W radios? I've had guys 100m away through brush with 0.1W radios come in all broken up. I've also had instances where someone two kilometers away in a city with a 1W GMRS can hear me clear as day (I use a 3W GMRS, at least the package says so) but his messages come in as pure static.

There are numerous atmospheric, terrain and radio interference sources that can influence transmission and reception distances. Many of them you cannot see and many of them requiring someone more knowledgable than me to explain. Suffice it to say that power is not the be all and end all in a radio. Its an important factor but antenna gain on receive is equally if not more important at the receiving end. Hearing someone come through in the clear may have more to do with the quality of the reception of a radio and the antenna gain than it does with the transmission power.

Originally Posted by LUTNIT

I've also run into situations where someone transmitting 5W on an FRS channel with one of the really nice radios just blew every FRS away. All transmissions came in as a constant tone unless they were at least 500m away through really dense brush. The further they got the more variation in the tone you could hear until you could finally make out the words.

If you're too close to a transmitter that overpowers your receiver and the receiver isn't designed to handle it, you can get overpowering distortion. In a game where I am communicating with people on FRS or GMRS often times I put my radio into LO power mode (<2.0watts) so as to avoid this effect. Typically when I use the Kenwood. No so with the VX-7R.

Some radios are sophistocated enough to pick up reception and then judge gain quality and power levels and adjust subsequent transmission power as the radio is communicating with that station (I have that on the VX-7R) which also saves battery power. Some have this as an option you turn on and some do this automatically as part of the transmit/receive circuit.

Originally Posted by LUTNIT

My Motorola T7100 GMRS can transmit clear as day to someone 750-900m away (few airsoft fields will involve distances further than that, at least in the Ottawa/Montreal area) over several hills, with zero line of sight, with more than half that distance being covered with really dense brush so I'm happy with it and I snagged it for US$20 shipped off of eBay and get 40-50 hour battery life running on alkaline batteries.

Thats terrific, but there is more to the equation than that. If you've got the right conditions you can bounce a signal around inside a 1km box and if you have the right antennas you can catch those bounces as well. I doubt it would perform the same way with every brand receiving and I am sure leafy foilage at some point will absorb the signal even with no terrain features.

I saw this demonstrated when I tried the Kenwood and a Moto T7200 and used it in the same terrain up north at 800m. In the winter, it worked great up to 1.4km. In the summer when the leaves and other foilage is at its peak, I was getting breakup at 950m and unreadable at my winter distance.

I don't deny you're observing those results but it probably as much to do with local conditions and the receivers as it does with the transmitter itself. I would say that if you have that experience with that radio in that locale, then its good advice to go with for someone else in that same locale. Keep in mind it could perform totally differently in another locale.

Can you get away with $20 bubblepack radios? Sure. There are just more options with the ham sets if you know now to take advantage of them and value that enough to spend the extra money.