Larry wrote:
snip
And you have to factor in the damned marinas and their 70' antenna towers
running 25 watts to talk to the motoryacht 200 ft away coming towards their
docks. FCC should restrict marinas to antennas 20' off the water running
1/2 watt.....or walkie talkies.

?? You're joking right? Did you know that more Watts gives them more
range? And that people can sometimes reasonably expect to communicate
with things that are beyond their visual (not radio) line of sight?

What would really make more sense to me is to make everyone have a radio
that shifts to the low power transmit mode when they transmit after a
received signal had a power level above a certain point. Add a LED so
the people can tell which mode they are transmitting in. And also give
them a power over ride control that will let them cancel the automated
feature when they feel the extra power is appropriate.

Someone is always going to be "too close" and someone else is always
going to "too far away".

And how about this? A radio that will not transmit if the antenna loop
shows an resistance above a certain level. That would get the folks
with bad installs and weathered connectors off the air.

Oh yeah, and add a SWR monitoring circuit too! If the SWR is more than
1.5:1 it won't transmit.

Jack

--
Jack Erbes in Ellsworth, Maine, USA - jackerbes at adelphia dot net
(also receiving email at jacker at midmaine.com)