wrote:
Hey folks,

I just bought a Luscombe 8A and am launching tomorrow to fly it home.

The problem is the handheld transceiver I'm using to communicate. It
works fine on the ground. But as soon as I get 100-200 feet off the
ground it gets overwhelmed with static, like the squelch is wide open.

It's a Vertex VXA-300 attached to an external antenna.

I' ve tried turning the squelch to max. I haven't checked whether it
occurs on all frequencies because that didn't occur to me until I had
put the plane back in the hangar.

Any ideas what's going on here? All help is appreciated.

Anything that would block the signal at that altitude? Have you tried
other frequencies? Other airports?