W8UM/R 2m Coverage

Jon KG6K performed an analysis of the W8UM/R 2m repeater coverage using VE2DBE's Radio Mobile software. The maps below show the expected signal strength at the W8UM/R repeater site (on top of Dennison) for two situations: mobile (e.g. car) and handheld (using an "HT"). The first (mobile) assumes 50 W of power and 4 dBi of antenna gain, while the second (handheld) assumes 5 W of power and a 0 dBi gain antenna.

Jon writes,

"Both sets of data are for a city environment. If you're indoors or in a car, you can easily lose 10-20 db handheld (2-4 S-units) or more. This is the signal received at the repeater. Since W8UM/R transmits at about 90 watts, you probably will be able to hear the repeater about 2 dB better.

The topographic data is 1-arcsecond data from the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission, map from the Census Bureau's Tiger system, and RF propagation is from the ITS Longley-Rice model. The model has a few fudge factors (Percent of situations), which has been set to match my experience. Both maps seem correct, though I'm open to playing with them some more based on people's feedback (e-mail Jon)."

This map shows W8UM/R coverage for a typical mobile 2m installation.

This map shows W8UM/R coverage using a typical handheld radio.

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