As far as I know, we have never had the 220 MHz amateur band this side of the Atlantic. Maybe we did before WW2. Perhaps someone can tell me.
Every week I get Amateur Radio Weekly in my email and this mentioned that this allocation is little used outside of the big US cities. If other VHF allocations are anything to go by, I am not surprised. 2m and 70cm are generally quiet here.
At one time handhelds were made for this band. I guess there are few nowadays if not many get sold.
I can imagine this could be an interesting band if activity was high. Frequently on 70cm tropo is better than 2m. At a time when activity was higher, it was not uncommon to have frequent, very localised tropo openings. With 4W and an old TV antenna, it was possible to work FM DX on 70cms quite often.
See https://www.onallbands.com/222-mhz-is-anybody-there/ .
See https://hamweekly.com/ .
We are not going to get an allocation to Hams in the UK, as DAB is right sock in the middle of it:
ReplyDeleteDAB broadcast frequencies
DAB transmissions use the part of the VHF broadcasting band.
The specific DAB frequencies are:
5A 174.928MHz7D 194.064MHz8A 195.936MHz8B 197.648MHz9A 202.928MHz9B 204.64MHz9C 206.352MHz10B 211.648MHz10C 213.36MHz10D 215.072MHz11A 211.648MHz11B 218.64MHz11C 220.352MHz11D 222.064MHz12A 223.936MHz12B 225.648MHz12C 227.36MHz12D 229.072MHz
We have got a better chance of trying to get and a small allocation at 40MHz.
Good luck!
73's Steve
No, not at all chasing an amateur band at 220 MHz in Europe. I agree this will not happen even if we tried.
ReplyDeleteA lot of the cheap Chinese handhelds have 220MHz, so they are still made plenty.
ReplyDeleteInteresting history of the band on Wikipedia, goes back to pre WW2 and the N American 56,112 and 224MHz bands.
ReplyDeletehttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1.25-meter_band.