Dave, The output power of a repeater has relatively little effect on its coverage; it's how well it receives that is important. A 3dB reduction in the repeater's received signal strength can be significant, especially if most of the users are just above the noise level when the antenna system is normal.
73, Eric Lemmon WB6FLY -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Dave Gomberg Sent: Saturday, November 15, 2008 8:14 AM To: [email protected]; [email protected] Subject: RE: [Repeater-Builder] OT: Stationmaster Pd-220 At 06:51 11/15/2008, G Shaw wrote: > Assuming about 80 feet of run at VHF you have added >well over 3 db of loss, which of course means your system is going to be >deaf on rcv and way down on xmt Glenn, I am confused. Us DX folks think 3db is about a factor of two in ERP, so that would be like turning a mobile down from 50w to 25w, hardly a world-shaking change. At least DXing, a few db can matter when you are on the borderline of making a contact, but for daily use? I would think there would be only a small change in coverage area. And folks who had solid signals before would still be clear and workable. What am I missing here? -- Dave Gomberg, San Francisco NE5EE gomberg1 at wcf dot com All addresses, phones, etc. at http://www.wcf.com/ham/info.html <http://www.wcf.com/ham/info.html>
