Subj : Re: TX on Aviation band with 2M Radio
To   : alt.ham-radio.vhf-uhf
From : nospam
Date : Wed Oct 12 2005 21:32:52

From Newsgroup: alt.ham-radio.vhf-uhf

On Wed, 12 Oct 2005 13:20:56 -0500, Chris W <1qazse4@cox.net> wrote:

>>
>I was just trying to kill 2 birds with one radio.  But I guess I will 
>probably end up getting an aviation only  hand held for the back up to 
>the airplane radio.  I wasn't too interested in the nav features that 
>some aviation hand held radios have as most people I have talked to find 
>it not very useful.

Like I said the Vertex radio does both.  

I have an older handheld Aircraft navcom and more than once I 
found the nav portion useful.The key there is like any handheld, a
good antenna especially for the NAV function which is best served by 
a horizontal dipole.   In aviation NAv RX is horizontally polarized
and Cooms are vertically polarized.   Even quality Aircraft handhelds
suffer the usual rubber duck makes a good dummy load problem
known to 2m users.

>While were on the topic of aviation radios, I understand for 
>international flights across the Atlantic, you need an HF radio.  Could 
>a 6M radio serve this purpose?  I have no idea what frequencies they use 
>for that.

No.  6M is still predominently VHF in that it's limited to line of
sight in the absence of any working propagation.   However line
of sight at 8000ft will be somewhat greater.   There is no advantage
over the standard VHF aircraft coms with regard to frequency.

The OTH (over the horizon) HF radios required for transatlantic work
are all HF in the 5-18 mhz range SSB radios typically in the 100W
performance range.  They are often combined with a wire antenna
and a automatic antenna tuner. 

If you intrested in listening any good reciever for the 5-18mhz range
that can recieve USB SSB will work.  Antennas for that task are a
seperate issue. 

Allison
KB!GMX

.