How far can one expect an internal R8 base radio to reach in wide open flat terrain? I have never used it this way before we always use a external radio. I upgraded to R10??s and am letting my neighbor borrow my R8??s to do some construction work on his property but I don??t have a spare radio for him to use. His property is basically a flat farm field without a single tree. Will he be able to get say a 2000?? radius from the base with no external radio? I know the R8 internal radios are really weak.
I've pushed them over 2 miles over wide open terrain.?ÿ
According to Trimble's R8 specsheet it suggests that the internal 0.5W radios are good for 3km, up to 10km. Your 2000' radius is 0.6km, so you should be good to go. Having said that, our Trimble derivative units also have 0.5W internals and recently while doing a RTK bathymetric survey (i.e. open sky, no terrain) by mistake we ran on the internals instead of external 4W and started loosing radio reception at about 1.5km, so I suspect even 3km specified minimum needs an elevated base location. On some occasions, to minimise the amount of equipment we haul, particularly jobs requiring air travel, we don't take the external radio gear, but we do take a 4m length of radio cable so that we can connect to the internal port at one end and connect the antenna at the other and improvise with a stick or similar to get the radio antenna high up.
I could be wrong, but I understand that the earlier generations of internal radios were gruntier 2W, but that stopped when USA tightened its laws on radio licencing above 0.5W, and narrow banding, and that adversely affected users in unregulated nations.?ÿ
I've never had a problem going 2,000' with them. In the terrain you're describing I'd expect close to a mile. Using external whip antennas helps if you have them available.
What Lee said,
I use this setup on the rover to extend the range while checking control points but it could easily be used at the base also.
James
I almost never set up the external radio. We just put the antenna directly on the R8 and run with it. A mile and a half in the mountains is no problem.
I did?ÿ some experimenting with 0.5w internal radios on a Leica GS15 when I was in OK. We found that up to about 0.8 miles the connection was solid?ÿ and still pretty good at a mile. At about that range it started to come in and out. That was with the standard whip antennae. With external antennas (similar to JaRo's picture) on both the base and rover we got 3 miles reliably.?ÿ My experience with R8s is consistent with that.
I used to have a crew chief that could get around two miles in that kind of terrain.?ÿ He would carry a fence post with him and drive it where he wanted the base set up and lash the 25' level rod to it with tie wire.?ÿ On top of the level rod he had rigged an adapter for the whip antenna.
The whip antenna is 0 gain, there is also a 5db gain antenna that will really help in flat terrain.
Then again you could get a yagi if you're working in one direction from the base (like a R/W project) and get maybe 5 miles from a .5w radio in flat terrain.
We use this one, and it kicks butt:
https://store.comtelcoantennas.com/y3343d-c
We use this one, and it kicks butt:
Note that this antenna has a gain of 7 dBd (= 9.15 dBi), which dramatically increases the Effective Radiated Power (ERP) of the transmitter.?ÿ It'd be easy to exceed your licensed ERP when using it if you feed it too much power.?ÿ This might not be a problem with half-watt equipment, but hooking a yagi up to a 35w radio running wide open would go far beyond the 70w ERP limit of my license.
?ÿ
Thanks guys. I think it should work fine for him. I do have some external antennas if needed. Went over yesterday and set up his base on a welded 5/8 stud so he doesn??t have to fool with setting up a tripod. Collecting opus data on it now and hopefully can test it out tomorrow.?ÿ
Jim, you are correct and we only use them at lower power settings.
I have tested mine out by setting up at the center of a section and was able to get radio at all the section corners.
On the page showing the different categories and post, it shows the last post here before mine as Cyril Turner. When I look for it, its not there.
I'm posting to see if mine disappears.
Now it shows 13 post but there is only 12 here.
On the page showing the different categories and post, it shows the last post here before mine as Cyril Turner. When I look for it, its not there.
I'm posting to see if mine disappears.
Now it shows 13 post but there is only 12 here.
From my experience, what you see depends on whether you are logged in or not. If not logged in, it seems you don't see all the posts.