[Milsurplus] Radio rang, real vs estimated

[Ray Fantini]

Back at the Dayton Hamfest this year their was a group of about a dozen
BC-611 hand-held, all from different owners and all transported some
distance in order to be their. The net on Saturday was on 3885 ( Kc) and
 many of the 611s  were not capable of hearing  the others, the bigger
sets like my TBX or the AVR that was net control both using whip
antennas did hear and were heard by everyone. I was located about
fifteen hundred feet from the net control on the other side of the
parking lot and had no problem receiving everything  including all the
611 check-ins, don't think their was anyone located more then a mile
or so from each other in the same group. My point to all this is that
although this is not a test where  all the radios were new and
calibrated together, but in a situation where radios are stored,
transported and attempted to net together the BC-611 only demonstrated
about one mile ( or less) useable range. It appears to me that many
times the range of the radios from that period is often way
overestimated from what the real range is. Being rather narrow minded I
tend to trust data from real world experience in judging effective range
of systems epically low frequency vertically polarized ground wave base.
Drawing comparisons with modern radios and what can be accomplished with
large antennas and ideal band conditions may not be valid in looking at
these systems. Myself, I am more interested in the Pacific theater and
have always wonder about the TBY series of radios and wanted to try a
real world net of them but have had a time with finding anyone who has a
working unit to talk with. Would speculate from looking at the design
that they would have a range of line of sight at best and after netting
them together they would drift or bounce off frequency quite quickly,
maybe next year we can get a couple or three TBY sets at Dayton? After
all not going top let a little thing like occupied bandwidth or the FCC
stop a field exercise.
Ray Fantini KA3EKH