Hey there! New to this topic and am taking my radio course this month.
What handheld radio out there (or two or more) has a 50 mile range with a decent line of sight. Google keeps taking me to Amazon to buy products with bad reviews.
Appreciate the input.
Pegasus1,
It would be helpful to let everyone know what radio bands you are talking about. VHF amateur frequencies, UHF amateur, or UHF GMRS? You are not going to get 50 miles on any of these frequencies unless you have perfect line of sight. Years ago I talked to a group of boy scouts who were at 9000 ft elevation with a straight line of sight to me at 700 ft elevation 75 miles away. They were using a VHS amateur handheld at around 5w as was I on 2m (146.520 MhZ). Last year I hit a GMRS repeater (UHF) that is 82 miles from my location, 3300 ft. elevation and 4500 ft. elevation with a valley between the two locations. I tried the next day to do the same thing and couldn’t. There are several GMRS repeaters I can hit from farther than 50 miles but the machines are on mountain tops with an unobstructed line of sight.
If there is anything in the way of line of sight you will probably not make to contact. Not saying it can’t be done but the topographical conditions will have to be right.
I deal mainly with marine and I get this question all the time, but the realistic answer is that standing in your boat, the horizon is just under 5 Km away, so somebody standing in their boat 5 miles the other side of the horizon would be able to talk to you at 10Km - so that is just over 6 miles. At sea line of site with a flat calm sea is exactly what you could see. On land, even where I live where it’s flat and marshland and water - my customers on the inland waterways cannot get the 8 miles between two moorings. I’ve had a conversation with an astronaut on the old skylab using a handheld - because line of site going up in the air has more air between the two points - hence why aircraft up high can be heard over very long distances. Any manufacturer who gives ranges on the box is daft!
As far as distance “Height is Might” I was recently on a snowmobile trip that took me up a mountain- elevation 3700 Ft-- and was able to hit a repeater near my home town 93 miles away with a 5w HT. Not only did I open the repeater, I had a crystal clear conversation with another station on same repeater.