Clint,
Thanks for the heads up and I saw your recommendations in earlier posts. (I hate stumbling into a group or thread unless I research the subject first and your group here is fraught with excellent information -- a lot of it your tips.)
The two VX150s were modded for CAP and are being used in that capacity. Shhhhhh! don't tell anyone; CAP requires NTIA compliant radios and these ain't. The irony is that one of them I bought from the AZ Wing DC (director of comm) at the Yuma ham fest a few years ago. They are used as emergency backup for ground teams or to contact a CAP aircraft where line-of-sight is not affected to terribly much by terrain.?
But, in general, you are correct, Back in the day, when NASA first put that Motorola HT into the hands of Owen Garriott, W5LFL, on the Shuttle. During a pass, just after he broke above the terrain and announced, I was listening to the downllink with my IC-255 (remember them?) set to 5w and gave him a call. He responded and surprised the crap out of me!
Sadly, Owen went SK and left us in 2019. I am still grateful for him giving me one of my greater thrills in amateur radio -- on five watts to boot.
Oh and measuring the HTs with the scope, thanks fo the heads up, Dale. I transmit into a 50 ohm dummy and measure the voltage across that. I go the same with the QRP radios I build. It's more accurate than my Bird.
--
William, K6WHP
"Cheer up, things could get worse..so I cheered up and, sure enough, things got worse!"
