One more thing... the watts a handheld transmits, is also, in a way, the "listening range" of the handheld. So, 8 watts let's you hear 4-5 miles. If you had 100 watts, you could hear a weaker 8 watt from way farther away.
That's how these magical handhelds reach repeater towers much farther distances (30 miles) away. The towers are listening harder...
So radio to radio is short range compared to radio to tower. (Unless you've got a
50 watt portable in your dash)
The problem with catching a repeater, is ... it's like a big party line. There's no way to talk privately on them. It's nothing like that. The frequency of a tower is public, and local area Hams all tune to that frequency (scan). So if a tower rebroadcasts, everyone hears. Local Hams are eager to hear someone talking on the repeater. It's how
they talk. You'll need to speak your call sign at least 1 time every 10 mins, so the monitoring Hams can
look you up.
RRB and stomping on a repeater all day while being extra amateur would just about guarantee a welcoming party for us when we return to camp. Because they LOVE finding abusers and have parties and equipment designated to Fox Hunt signals. And they can. They train for it, even.
That's just how it is. Jumping on repeater tower w/o a license isn't a good idea, unless it's a emergency. So that's not really feasible.
