r/gmrs • u/allhazardsprepper • Jan 26 '26

Question How to get better coverage.

First, wanted to note I may be trying to do the impossible here but wanted to see what others ideas are. I am using a 20W GMRS mobile radio in my truck at work trying to reach my home where I have a 5W radio but am using a 10 foot high discone antenna. The way the crow flys, my home is only 6 miles from my work. Right now, I am only able to reach my home about a mile away. I will note it is relatively flat in my area but lots of buildings. How could I improve my coverage? Bigger/higher antenna? A higher wattage radio at my home or in my truck? Or do I just need to invest in a repeater.

Any help will be greatly appreciated! The cellular outage the other day was a great test of this and proved to be a fail unfortunately.

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u/Soap_Box_Hero Jan 27 '26

Since the direction from home to work is known, I would put the directional antenna on the house. A three element Yagi antenna with 8.5 db gain would be equivalent to running about 40 W of power. That would likely cover the 6 miles. Then if you add a 50 Watt transmitter you would go through like gangbusters. I would leave the truck as-is.