I once worked a 2m repeater in Shreveport from my home in Dallas. But I had 300 watts into 14 elements at 60 feet. I actually could work that repeater most days, but refrained thereafter 'cuz I could hear that I was bringing several other repeaters up in the 200-mile space between Dallas and Shreveport, and I didn't want to make myself a pariah. That was in the early 1980s, when very few repeaters used PL tones.
Except for that, the only time I used 300 watts was on Thursday evenings when I was Net Control on Dallas's Metro Information Net. We had some Two Meter Turkeys who thought they could disrupt the net, but they couldn't talk over Net Control -- I was only 1/2 mile from the repeater -- and if necessary I could hear everyone on the input.
Another time I talked with a Cuban ham on the local 2m repeater in Tallahassee. He was in solid; tropospheric ducting, we both guessed. Many Tallahassee hams worked him. That was probably about 500 miles, but of course all I had to hit was the local repeater.
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-- Carl
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