Increasing handheld range
- Thread starter flynhi4u
- Start date
Being illegal is the last thing I thought of since we have been putting ports to connect your handheld to the external antenna in planes for years. Since it has the FAA's blessing I never even considered it to be illegal in a marine environment.
My question was really pertaining to installing a signal amplifier inline to boost the handheld's transmit power to 25 watts like the hard mount, since that is the legal limit of marine transmitters. Somewhere along the line it got a bit off track. I did find the information that was shared to be interesting reading material though.
Sam
My question was really pertaining to installing a signal amplifier inline to boost the handheld's transmit power to 25 watts like the hard mount, since that is the legal limit of marine transmitters. Somewhere along the line it got a bit off track. I did find the information that was shared to be interesting reading material though.
Sam
Well, google "marine vhf amplifiers"...most will come up with ham amps. Mirage and Henry Radio may have something. If using emergency only, anythings legal..
From a practical standpoint, the extra power won't buy you much if anything at all. It doesn't increase your receiver sensitivity and doesn't help with obstacles (the primary range limiter). The amplifier is known as a linear amplifier. It would have to be "type accepted" or "type approved" and if it generated anything outside the normal bandwidth you do have liability. Outside the ham bands (assuming you were ham licensed) I think you are on pretty shaky ground. The FCC does have a fleet of vehicles that search for illegal transmitters, but I think they are mostly looking for the most flagrant violators.
Ken
