bands-and-modes

Bands and Modes
Notes
Some interesting spot frequencies

Bands and Modes

This page is meant as a modern non-exhaustive high level reference of what kinds of propagation and activity you will typically find on the common amateur radio bands. It may be UK-centric.

Your contributions welcome!

Please edit this page directly or make suggestions via #wiki-discussion

Band	Daytime	Night-time	Comments	Traffic	Contests
160m 1.81-2MHz	Ground wave (120km)	DX but antennas often compromised	Noisy with summer storms	Data modes, SSB and CW, some AM to be found.	Yes
80m 3.5-3.8MHz	Ground wave / NVIS	DX	Lots of long-winded chat. Massively busy during contests.	Everything, lots of SSB, CW, AM and data	Yes
60m 5MHz	Ground wave / NVIS	DX and local	Channelised, shared with military, caution operating here. Full UK Licence Only	FT8, SSB. No contests.	No
40m 7.0-7.2MHz	Often open worldwide	Often open worldwide	Bread and butter HF band. Massively busy during contests. Mind the upper limit, we have less than the US.	Everything, lots of SSB and CW and data	Yes
30m 10.1-10.15MHz	Open worldwide	Generally closes after sunset	Very narrow data-only HF band. Often great conditions.	Data/CW only, no voice allowed	No
20m 14.0-14.35MHz	Open worldwide	Closes after sunset	Bread and butter HF band. Massively busy during contests.	Everything here. A bit of a zoo.	Yes
17m 18.068-18.168MHz			“Polite 20m”. 20m non-contest traffic often comes here during the major contests.	SSB, CW, FT8	No
15m 21.0-21.45MHz			Big wide allocation, not much traffic	SSB, CW, FT8	Yes
12m 24.89-24.99MHz			No contests.	SSB, CW, FT8	No
10m 28.0-29.7MHz	Generally closed but opens when the MUF gets up this high, then comes to life!	Generally closed, but try grey-line to Japan (AM), South America (PM)	Massive wide band, great for local experimentation, FM DX	All sorts, including more FM than the HF bands. New York 10m FM repeater from the UK anyone? Perfectly possible with good conditions.	Yes
6m 50-52MHz	Normally no atmospheric prop	Normally no atmospheric prop	“The magic band”. Sporadic E propagation makes this band look like 20m for really short periods in the spring.	FT8, SSB, FM, repeaters!	Yes
4m 70-70.5MHz	Normally no atmospheric prop	Normally no atmospheric prop	Pockets of activity around the country. Similar to 2m.	Mostly FM, but more SSB now the IC7300 exists.	Uncommon
2m 144-146MHz	Normally no atmospheric prop	Normally no atmospheric prop	Pretty much as high as sporadic E propagation ever gets. Tropospheric enhancements can open 2m up as far as southern Europe sporadically.	FM simplex, FM repeaters, APRS (including ISS), FT8, SSB, pockets of AX.25 packet. There's a TV section you can request an NoV for above 2m. Satellites at the top end of the band and CW at the bottom.	Yes
70cm 430-440MHz	Normally no atmospheric prop	Normally no atmospheric prop	Shared with ISM / other users, some geographic restrictions on use, check your licence	FM repeaters, FM simplex, some amateur TV, lots of bleeps and bloops to decode. Satellites in this band too.	Uncommon
23cm 1240-1325MHz	Normally no atmospheric prop	Normally no atmospheric prop	Is present on IC-9700	SSB, repeaters, beacons, ATV	Specialist
13cm 2300-2450MHz	Normally no atmospheric prop	Normally no atmospheric prop	Used as the uplink band for QO-100 geostationary satellite ops. Usable using transverters generally with 70cm equipment. Unfortunately not open to Foundation licence holders	ATV, SSB	Specialist

Notes

All bands are “open” all the time within line of sight. This is different from “ground wave”.
A band is “open” beyond line of sight when there is atmospheric propagation. i.e. the MUF (maximum usable frequency) has drifted above the band of interest.
Generally speaking, the MUF is low overnight and high during the day. Bands will “go long” or “go short” as the critical angle - the angle at which RF reflects off ionosphere layers changes.
When thinking about propagation, think of the ionosphere as a thick, imperfect, curved, liquid mirror. Not as a perfect solid metal reflector.
CW is Continuous Wave. Morse code is the usual method of using CW.
Simplex is radio-to-radio
NVIS is “near-vertical incidence skywave” - straight up, straight back down again. Only possible on low bands.
For SSB, 80m and 40m are LSB. The remainder are USB. This is the convention. Data modes are generally USB regardless of band.
There are two bands below 160m (2200m and 630m). These generally require highly loaded (compromised, lossy) antennas so lots of power in for hardly any power out.
There are multiple bands above 13cm (9cm, 6cm, 3cm (the only microwave band available to Foundation licence holders), then 24GHz, 47GHz, 76GHz, 122GHz, 134GHz, 248GHz, then a series of Terahertz bands from 275GHz to 3THz available by NoV application). This is highly specialised territory.
Both of those sets of bands are largely accessible using homebrew equipment only
It can be somewhat of a surprise to newcomers that chatting around the UK can be surprisingly difficult. If this is your goal, try 160m, 80m, 40m NVIS and/or ground/wave, then VHF (6m, 4m, 2m). Use SSB and horizontal polarisation for more range up here.
Rule of thumb: No FM on HF, CW at the bottom of each band, then data modes, then SSB/free-for-all. Mind the beacons.

Some interesting spot frequencies

Band	Frequency	What/why
2m	144.800	APRS
2m	145.800/825	ISS downlink
20m	14.230	SSTV. 14.233 is digital SSTV too.
20m	14.074	20m FT8
30m	10.000	WWV, American time station
40m	7.16	WAB net
80m	3.76	WAB net
160m	1.933	1933 net
…	…	…

Table of Contents

Bands and Modes

Your contributions welcome!

Notes

Some interesting spot frequencies