Batboard

What's the longest range between you and a given trunking system (800 band primarily, but any band will do) that you've ever been at and
acquired the system and been able to hear intelligible audio from it? (Or, in the case of those users whom I will PRESUME are authorized,
how far away have you been from the system and been able to communicate via it with intelligible audio?

Several years ago I was an authorized user in a subfleet on a West Palm Beach Type I system. I was able to maintain an intelligible
conversation with other membes of my subfleet via an STX with a 5/8 wave whip antenna at distances of almost eighty miles, once
in a while. There was one particularly good spot that I could count on to give me good performance near the 80 mile mark,
most any given afternoon under clear conditions.

If I knew the actual location of that system's tower, I'd actually measure the distance with Google Earth.

I pick up neighboring counties (40 to 50 mile range) like they're in the same city with me, about half the time.

I note that EDACS systems lack the reach of Motorola systems. Even though they use similar antennas and similar power levels.

Elroy

Usually once your 75 miles from a Motorola trunking system, it will not let you in. I have not personally verified that but I have been told by quite few people, including some engineers from Motorola. It measures the propogation (time) delay from your subscriber unit to the site nearest to you on the control channel.

The old 1a28 900 SMR system in Houston had a reliable usable radius of around 60 miles mobile. It was located at One Shell Plaza in downtown Houston at 714 AGL, alongside the master site for Harris County's Smartzone system and most of the city's primary UHF transmitters.

Now, during band openings, I have personally seen Motorola radios lock in to systems as far as 300 miles out. If you want specifics, I saw a MTX8000 receive the Harris County downtown site in the parking lot of the Belton, TX convention center (around 250 miles LOS).

Generally, you can receive far greater than you can transmit back, for sure. GEMOTO is somewhat correct, there is a value called "T-Zero" which can be adjusted in the controller. It basically tells the controller how long it can wait for a valid response to an OSW. By default, it works out to around 80Kms. So, you can have a very strong control channel signal which the radio can receive perfectly, yet you cannot affilitate or transmit back to the system, as the response time is beyond the T-Zero window. I've seen this limit in action myself several times over the years. Most sites in our provincial SmartZone system have been left at default, although at least 3 that I know of have been extended to approx 125Kms for helicopter traffic.

Todd

We had our marine unit take the PBC TRS about 60 miles out towards Nassau. Of course they were chasing a bad guy and gave their lat & long over the radio with no obstructions. They didn't seem to have any trouble communicating at all and probably had many more miles to go.

Their marine equipment is usually an Astro Spectra mobile and 1/4 wave about 8 to 10 feet in the air. I didn't catch any transmissions made by the portable, but according to other users its goes quite a way's to the east.

In the more mature urban areas I can take it a good 40 or 50 miles north or south of the boarder, but we are a NPSPAC system and have our boarder signal directional east and west to protect adjacent channel users.

I communicated on a LTS2000 Portable to a tower sight I knew to be 107 miles away. I was able to use and complete a call via Private call and could both recieve and be heard intelligently. It would not work any further away than that. This was in fairly flat area, but I had a entire meMajor metropolitan area between me and the tower I was on.

I have seen a spectra receive Philly from the Staten Island ferry terminal in lower Manhattan. I'd say that was at least 100 miles.