Edward Cole wrote:
But seeing that so many folks run HT's that typically are 5w, I think you might chose the lowest range as long as your equipment output matches. You have to consider that you will have no antenna gain using omni-directional antennas so uplink RF power needs are affected, accordingly. NOW if some experienced sat op will add their input on this subject you should have the info you need.
I have a small amount of experience in this ;-)
I've successfully worked about half a dozen contacts (not trying very hard) with a Trio TH-F7 HT and a homebrew Arrow-type antenna, and a fairly "approximate" diplexer. The antenna is a 3-element Yagi for 2m and a 5-element Yagi for 70cm. The HT puts out only 5W on high power, but it can wake up AO-51, SO-50 and AO-27.
Unfortunately AO-51 seems to be plagued by the same cretins that jam repeaters with silly noises and bursts of music at certain times. Even when they're not doing that there's always someone trying to run 2.5kW into a massive stacked antenna. I've noticed that these are also the ones that sit there calling "CEEEE KYOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO CEEEEEEEEEEE KYOOOOOOO CEEEEEEEEEEEE KYOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO <whistle whistle whistle> CEEEEEEEEEE KYOOOOOOOOOO CEEEEEEEEEEE KYOOOOOOOOOOOOO CEEEEEEEEEEEEE KYUUUUUUU" for nearly the whole damn pass without pausing for breath.
Gordon