Ham Radio Power Matters.

[gil]

Does it really?

Case in point: Voyager 1 at 19,654,705,000 Km from Earth.
http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/where/index.html
That is roughly 12,212,867,480 miles as I type this.
Its distance from Earth is more than 18 light-hours.
Voyager's radio power is 23W; yes, twenty three Watts.
That's 531 million miles per Watt!

You'll say it's through empty space, but still... The record on Earth is 13,467,980 miles per Watt (http://www.eham.net/articles/9982).

It goes to show that cranking the power up should not be the first priority to improve communications and that the antenna is the most important part of your system, for a number of reasons. Another very important factor is noise reduction. Increasing power should be your last resort, because more power equals more current draw and much heavier gear. In normal usage, it doesn't matter, but for prepping or away from civilization, it is of cruicial importance to save energy, yours and your batteries.

Gil.

[Greywolf69]

Funny you should bring this up as a topic, I was mooching about on internet last night and came across a museum of WWII and cold war spy radios. They were suitcase sized and low power output but were used successfully. Amazing how they squeezed so much into a suitcase considering we're talking valve sets.
They had to be portable and discreet, for obvious reasons.
Lessons to learn for today's preppers

[Lamewolf]

I am a QRP operator most of the time and never run more than 100 watts at most.  One time while chatting with local friends on 10 meters, one of them was giving me a hard time because I simply refuse to own and operate a high power amp.  So while I was talking, I started turning my power down by a factor of 50% on each transmission.  When I reached 1/2 watt, they had trouble hearing me but still could hear me and all of a sudden I get a call from Southern Florida telling me I'm still S9 at his location and I'm in Southern Ohio.  The guy also told me that if he had not been looking at the S meter, he would not have known I turned the power down !

[Jim Boswell]

NASA used the VLA to receive signals from Voyager when it outflew the NASA network. The VLA can hear a cell phone placed on Jupiter. In the old days amateurs used to say "spend 60% of your station budget on radio gear and 40% of your budget on antenna system". These days many hams don't follow that advice as it is much easier to buy the newest radio, than do work on their antennas (IF they even have the real estate to put up more or larger antennas).
On my station I am happy to use a 30year old radio. It has taken 5 years to find the equipment but this Spring I hope to put up my tower and 3 element yagi. Amateur radio takes both a radio and an antenna.