Radio range

[TernVI]

It's a funny old world. I recently had cell phone signal 22nm from the closest land.
...

That is not particularly remarkable.
Back in the early 90s, some people I knew in the oil industry kept their analogue mobiles, because they would work out on some of the rigs, whereas GSM phones are limited by the system timing to 40km if memory serves. ( a big if these days).
Back then, there were many fewer base stations and they were much further apart. You could get UK vodafone inland from Calais.
Sailing back from France to Poole or Portsmouth, it's common to get a signal a long way out.

 

[Buck Turgidson]

That is not particularly remarkable.
Back in the early 90s, some people I knew in the oil industry kept their analogue mobiles, because they would work out on some of the rigs, whereas GSM phones are limited by the system timing to 40km if memory serves. ( a big if these days).
Back then, there were many fewer base stations and they were much further apart. You could get UK vodafone inland from Calais.
Sailing back from France to Poole or Portsmouth, it's common to get a signal a long way out.

yes but not 3G ;-)

I used to talk directly to the UK from over the south atlantic, sometimes i could hear my own transition as it completed it's circumnavigation and once I got a triangulation fix using HF that involved one station in the Indian ocean one in the North Atlantic and one in the US. All in the days before mobile phones existed