VHF Simplex Coast to Coast

[Major Lord]

A question for the Com-Minded individuals out there: Do you think we have enough (functioning) Corporate and Personal VHF stations in the United States to pass messages from coast to coast? In my scenario I am ruling out repeaters, tropospheric ducting, Internet links, or mobile stations dispatched to mountains to act as man-repeaters.

Major Lord

[Al Sayre]

We probably have more than enough equipment if it was all lined up properly, the problem is area concentration, especially in the smaller wings.  The units are simply spaced too far apart to communicate even with the use of repeaters. 

With an optimized antenna set up, about the best I can do in my area on simplex is about 15 miles.  I can hit the local repeater with its antenna at about 300'AGL from about 25-30 miles out.  I live about 50 miles from the repeater, and the rest of the folks with radios are much closer in, so I can't even talk to my unit from the house...

Many members just hook up the antenna they are given with little or no consideration of the SWR.  I've seen some with SWR's exceeding 3, which means they probably won't get much better than a mile or two on the frequencies we use. JMHO

[a2capt]

I certainly think there's enough equipment, however it may not all be located conveniently. Since you don't want anyone to relocate, there's these vast tracts of desert that people just don't live in, and an incredible pile of dirt cutting the continent in half that is surrounded by in some cases a couple hundred miles of nothing. Certainly past the range of a station.

[arajca]

A question for the Com-Minded individuals out there: Do you think we have enough (functioning) Corporate and Personal VHF stations in the United States to pass messages from coast to coast? In my scenario I am ruling out repeaters, tropospheric ducting, Internet links, or mobile stations dispatched to mountains to act as man-repeaters.

Major Lord

Purely simplex - no.

a2capt - That pile cutting the continent in half is ROCK, not dirt.

[JC004]

The eastern side of Nevada - now THERE'S a vast expanse of nothing.   

[a2capt]

Ya missed the sarcastic nature ... incredible pile .. of dirt. Ah well.

Even dirt would block anything radio wise in that amount. Thus someone would have to relocate and climb it. It's one thing if we lived all over every inch of the land and CAP comm people included, were evenly spaced.

[whatevah]

Interesting question... While we could arrange something with enough planning to get a message from DC to Fran Sancisco... We don't have anywhere near enough radios or manpower to cover the entire country.  Even if we did, it would take a couple hours to pass a message from coast to coast.  Figuring 25 mile range, you would need at minimum 100 operators.  Even a 10 second long message would take over a minute to receive and then relay to the next person.

But why are you taking HF out of the picture?    HF is for long-range stuff, even with bad weather conditions you could get a message from DC to CA in 4 relays or less, direct operator to operator if the weather is ok.  Set up 10 dedicated relay stations across the country with a selection of 2 or 3 different HF radios (with correct antennas for the bands) and a couple VHF radios for local comms and you could easily cover the entire country with redundancy to allow weaker locations to relay through the dedicated sites.    Most of the wings that have a mobile comm/command truck have at least a medium-quality HF setup onboard that could be put into service until a dedicated site was set up. 

[RADIOMAN015]

I would agree that VHF fixed base station geographic locations and the antenna systems being utilized (beam versus omni directional antennas) would play an important part on the capability to do this.

Might be something on a wing/regional levels standpoint to test in the future (perhaps as part of a comm exercise).  HOWEVER, I think the comm leadership is likely depending upon HF SSB/ALE (NVIS & typical long distance antennas) as the primary linking methods.
RM

[wuzafuzz]

Cool thread, surprised I missed it.

In a word: no.  Not only would we be unable to do this using VHF simplex (given the constraints in your scenario), I doubt we could pull it off with repeaters. 

I tend to think of our VHF network as a Local Area Network.  Our Wide Area Network depends on all the things your scenario prohibits.  In my experience our WAN is pretty weak, and is heavily dependent on phones and Internet.  HF could pass messages coast to coast but I think we'd have huge swaths of missed points in between.  NY to LA, sure.  Mass distribution to all points in between, probably not.  Hopefully we can get there again.  We could learn some things from MARS, IMHO.

Edited to fix a typo.

[Major Carrales]

I think we should rebuilt and fill the holes of our HF stations as well as provide a good local coverage for our VHF repeaters.  We made it an early goal, when I commanded the Corpus Christi Comp Squadron to address our COMM needs.  Thanks to the tireless work of our Lt Garmon, and support from the whole squadron...we were able to replace the failing repeater and now there is an excellent coverage area.

As for the New cadet unit in Kingsville, I think if I can get a good COMMO we could do the same.  If he reads this, please call me...