Yesterday I went on a little adventure out in the California desert. I was equipped with a Baofeng UV-5R and a cell phone loaded with APRS.fi software. Our first destination was the Hole-in-the -Wall Rings Trail. Shortly after exiting the 40 highway, I lost cell service, but fortunately before that I was already looking for people transmitting their location via APRS. I found one!
My contact, K6ORJ, was wise enough to put his simplex calling frequency 146.520 in the comments of his APRS beacon. I didn’t find him in the campground, but later that day I heard him call over 146.520 and was able to carry on a conversation while inside a car driving from the Hold-in-the-Wall Campground over to Mid Hills Campground 9 miles away by road, 6.2 miles line of sight over some small hills. There were only a couple spots that the transmissions were weak. If I was outside the car with my BF-F8HP, I imagine it probably would have been no problem in the canyon.
Line of Sight was 6.2 miles
The was some terrain in the way of line of sight communications:
Coverage was a little spotty in this canyon between 5-6 miles away:
The 2M Simplex Calling graphic was created by LadyMaggies. Buy your a sticker for your car via her Etsy website: https://www.etsy.com/listing/660070054/146520-2m-national-simplex-calling?ref=related-1&frs=1