Quote Originally Posted by bacpacker View Post
EB, do you think the vertical vs horizontal could be affecting comms at the distance?
I think it very well could be a player.. I am self taught electronics & ham, so someone with more formal education in the field could probably give a more definitive answer.

For example: I used to have an Icom 706 Classic, which had 2m on it... not only that, but it had 2m SSB mode! I hooked it up to my vertical ground plane (144mhz of course...) and could not communicate with my buddy in Floyd county.. He was running a 2m dipole. When we got on the phone, he advised we needed to have the same polarization.. He could not hear me, and vice versa. The next day I made (and still have!) a 2m dipole out of some scrap copper pipe... I built it a little bigger than the formula called for, and using a VHF SWR meter, started trimming a little off the ends until the SWR went flat... I was resonant! That night, I talked to him 2m SSB clear as a bell!

As I said, verticals talk to dipoles and vice versa every day... HOW the opposing polarities do and dont play well is beyond my scope of understanding.

EB

PS
Some light reading here...
https://www.google.com/search?q=hori...x-a&channel=sb

I (heart) Google images:
https://www.google.com/search?q=hori...w=1440&bih=788