Bryan:

You are correct:  It is Ham Radio after all J I was just wondering about the link budget.  Not much headroom, but there is always QRO!

The bay inversions are notorious for this kind of stuff.  The old WTSP path from Gandy to New Port Richey was also a fun one.  Most everybody is on fiber now,  RF STL is a thing of the past.

Regarding H-Pol over water:  Forced to by the BAS Band Plan.  7GHz was a shared band, as was 2GHz, since the dawn of TV broadcasting. Fixed point to point in BAS was H-Pol and RPU (ENG) was V-Pol. Right before analog went away, CP was coming into use.  Hell, for the longest time, we had a 2GHz STL for WUSF on 2 Gig 7, right in the middle of the RPU ENG band that was a pain in the ass for the news truck guys (and in my case – gal) to work around, especially on the path from North of Tampa to Riverview ENG pickup points.

There is a story behind this.  Ask me sometime about “Tampa Bay Microwave Wars”.

Now, with Digital modulation, fiber STL and bonded Cellular, it’s all a thing of the past.

-lu-W4LT-