Great summary Kevin. Wanna trade sites? :-)
Our sites are all so bloody noisy that blowing more power from them rarely helps, either at the site or out away from the hills, sadly. So you're right -- it's all about usable receiver sensitivity! (GRIN) Of course, the opposite is also true... even though they're noisy, altitude really helps trump that. They hear stuff I'm always amazed they hear, considering they're already operating at a disadvantage of also hearing a city of 3-5 million people's RF *CRUD*... since they can "see" all of it. You hear some guy trying his HT out 100 miles hilltopping, and you just shake your head and wonder how the heard it. (GRIN) Speaking of cutting the crud... (ha!)... the D-STAR system on the "evil" pair of 145.25- seems to really "cut through" the analog CATV leakage on it's output just fine, in areas where the cable system is leaking. A good use for a normally really BAD pair to use for analog, perhaps in many areas? The "busy" indicator on my mobile rig is always lit, but the radio sits silent, and hears the repeater over the fluttery analog carriers that are always present in any large metro on that pair (unless the cable company is better than Comcast at containing leaks!) just fine. Interesting side-effect of having to use that pair for the D-STAR system here was in finding out that the user rigs and the repeater do just fine with the constant but weak (in most areas) analog interference. Nate WY0X
