Hello,

  I am a recent Tech and am most active on 2m.  I plan on becoming active on 70cm soon.  I do have an HF rig but of course am only licensed to use 28.300-28.500 SSB but I do listen in on the other bands sometimes.

  I enjoy modifying Yagi antennas for special purposes.  I also enjoy talking simplex (actually half duplex) to some locals as well as using the 147.120+ local repeater.  I run between 2W and about 75W mobile on 2m and about 15W hitting the antenna has reached up to 150 miles mobile (into Georgia) then my HT had issues, likely low battery.  2 way QSO with me at 150 miles from the repeater (as the crow flies) has been confirmed using the KP4AZ repeater here in Lockhart, FL close to Orlando.  I used a very old "CB" triple mag mount and a Firestik 5/8WL that was actually slightly mistuned.  Of course I can do much better than that but it just shows you when conditions are right, even suboptimal equipment works fine.

  I was able to get my HT to hit the repeater cleanly with just a duck antenna from indoors from over 17 miles so I scrapped the remote base idea for now.  I suspect outdoors and at 5 feet above ground level, a HT with duck antenna could hit the 147.120 repeater from 30 miles.  I may test that sometime.  I will also be testing HT to HT from about 16.6 miles using duck antennas soon.  I'll post the results.

  Fun hobby.  It seems to attract lots of smart people.  There are tons of fun things to test too.