I have noticed that at my new house, being able to hit the local 2M repeater is very intermittent. This is true for both my HTs and my mobile rig (mag mount 1/4wave and also a fender mount 1/2 wave). Repeater is about 14 miles away 1200ft, and my house is at 100ft.

For example, sometimes I can maintain a QSO inside my house (with an HT), granted there is a fair amount of static. Other times, it's pure static.

What is the likely cause of this? I get the same conditions with 3 different radios.


As I understand it, VHF/UHF aren't affected by atmospheric conditions as much.

If you're right on the cusp of coverage, anything that affects signal strength becomes a lot more evident.

Multipath is really obvious in conditions like this (either picket fencing while moving or making the repeater
in one spot but not in another a few feet away.)

Also, while not huge, there are environmental effects -- I can look at the incoming power from the 300W
weather radio station 40 miles from me (line of sight, I literally can see the antenna with a telescope) and
there's a 1dB variation early morning v. late afternoon.

So those are possibilities, but given what you describe, I think it's more likely you're just not in a good location.

I'm assuming you can't actually see the repeater antenna, so you've got some ground clutter between
you and it -- that opens another can of worms. It could be as simple as someone parking a car in the
wrong spot, how wet the trees are, etc.

Both HTs and mobiles are low to the ground and the ground clutter is a serious issue. I bet on your roof,
either with a HT or with a roof mounted antenna, you would a have vastly superior signal to the repeater.

Damn, 14 miles? That's terrible. What's the topography like? Infrastructure?
I think it'll improve when the foliage falls.

when you are having trouble turn off every light in the house..  See if it helps, then start unplugging things..  I had some homedepot ecosmart led lights that were terrible rf noisemakers on 2m..      I would say rfi

Prosise

That's what I thought. 14 miles (based on what I have read, since I have very little experience) sounds pretty pathetic. It is rather mountainous and "hilly" around here. I live on the Oregon coast.

Not much change in foliage around here since it's all conifers.