Hand held RX distances with a hand held

Hi all. I've been playing with this new Anytone 878+ in analog until I can get my foundation license (listening only), and today even though not connected to a local repeater I was listening to a repeater conversation some 90 miles away on 2M. I can understand that they wouldn't hear my hand held from this distance, but is that reception distance normal?

It's not entirely unusual.

The Foundation will teach you 'line of sight' for these bands but is often a third more or so than the calculated. The fun happens when certain propogation conditions happen! See the link below :-

RSGB - VHF/UHF Propogation


See, it's still all radio fun up there too!

90 miles from a 2m repeater, doesn't sound to unheard of.
remember its txing anything from 20watts+ which generally is much more than a standard handy around 4w,
If the repeater is located on high ground and/or you have line of sight to it then I would say its easily possible.
You might even find a small yagi on the handy will be enough to give the repeater access if your directing all your 4watts straight at it.

Did you catch the repeater name or ident you could hear?

90 miles is not unusual, here in Leicester we've had people from SE London accessing CB3CF (before it went digital) when there's a 'lift' on, over 100 miles, and sometimes we used to get interference from the Bristol repeater too. We even had folks from Boston (Lincs) and Wrexham (N Wales) getting into it too, it all depends on band conditions. VHF does have a good range sometimes, but it's not reliable, but it does happen. Ah the joys of Ham radio, lol. If the repeater is on a good high site and conditions permit even European contacts are possible. If you've got a smart phone, get the 'Repeater Book' app and see what you can hear, you might be surprised. 50 miles is not unheard of either even on a bad day.

Thanks Victor. Propagation as in what we knew as 'skip'. I've just been going back over the foundation license manual taking notes and propagation/ionosphere was something I could grasp from old, its just the numbers I needed to take notes on.

Ranger thanks. I just google map distanced it and it works out 65 miles not 90, however that's still impressive in my eyes for a hand held sat on a windowsill facing the opposite direction. Keep in mind I only come from the old FM/AM/SSB era.

The repeater was GB3TU Tring. After I posted that people were coming through this repeater from Weymouth, the Isle Of Wight and near Brighton, so I was quite impressed considering a few days ago I was looking at this radio as though an expensive door stop.
All this is strange as I listen to repeaters around me and there's hardly any calls, but maybe that's just down to activity than anything else.

Thanks Mitch my corrected mileage seems about right then. If this is what's possible on a hand held its making it so more tempting to get the full license and expand. For now I want to try this hand held along with two antennas on the van and see how each of those perform.

I'm only 34M above sea level by the way.