An amateur band at 40MHz would be really useful as I suspect the F2 MUF has been in this region several times in the last few years. There are a very few beacons around 40MHz (UK and Denmark only I believe) but wouldn't it be good to have even 100kHz around this frequency? Sadly it is very unlikely, but I would happily lose 100kHz at the top of 10m in exchange. It would also be a very useful Es band.
Somehow I can't see this happening, more is the pity. The world of radio science would really benefit. This would have been so much more useful than 146-147MHz recently released to UK amateurs by NoV. I know a handful of UK amateurs are trying narrowband DTV but the 2m band is mainly Japanese "black boxes" and is mostly white noise in most areas.
Nice idea Roger. Even if we did have it, you might be the only one on there! The lower VHF 29-70Mhz region is interesting though.
ReplyDeleteIs there much commercial pressure on that region? We will loose so much VHF/UHF spectrum in the next decade that low band might be whats left!
Cheers. G8JGO.
Oh forgot to say - we can, collectivity, keep 50MHz from being a wasteland 99% of the time, so what leverage do we have at 40MHz?
ReplyDelete2m is largely a wasteland too around here! Personally I am in favour of radio amateurs doing REAL radio science rather than just talking on a Japanese radio to the fellow down the street. Several bands I would consider would allow this such as below 8.3kHz, around 73kHz, 40MHz and 60MHz. In each case the take-up might be small in numbers but real experiments could be done. Even shared access would be fine.
ReplyDeleteIt seems odd to me that OFCOM could allocate (ad interim) a whole 1000kHz at 146-147MHz whereas allocating a (shared) total of few hundred kilohertz elsewhere in the spectrum is so very hard. Even a low power ERP restriction would be OK, say 1W ERP at VF/LF and 10W ERP at VHF.
ReplyDeleteGb3ral beacon transmits on both 40Mhz
ReplyDeleteand 60Mhz. A quick Google should give
information.