Hi..
I have 'proper' radio equipment, (read expensive/professional set up), and can hear the airborne traffic and the tower at LGW easily but anything on the ground is usually barely readable.
So if you are talking handhelds I would say forget it for both LHR and LGW except for the aircraft side of the conversation... even with a big external antenna I think you'd be lucky.
VHF is generally accepted as line of sight comms only. And the height of your antenna makes a lot of difference for that reason.
PW
Edited to add that I live right on the edge of the LGW zone.
Last edited by pilotwolf; 9th Jul 2004 at 06:44.