Differences

This shows you the differences between two versions of the page.

--- bands-and-modes [2022/01/29 13:41] – created m0lte
+++ bands-and-modes [2022/01/29 20:21] – m0tzo
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 ====== Bands and Modes ======
-This page is meant as a non-exhaustive high level reference of what kinds of activity you will typically find on the common amateur radio bands. It may be UK-centric.
+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.
+^ Band ^ Daytime                          ^ Night-time                        ^ Comments                 ^ Traffic         ^
+| 160m | Ground wave (120km)              | DX but antennas often compromised | Noisy with summer storms | Data modes, SSB and CW, some AM to be found. |
+| 80m  | Ground wave / NVIS               | DX                                | Lots of long-winded chat. Massively busy during contests. | Everything, lots of SSB, CW, AM and data                |
+| 60m  | Ground wave / NVIS               | DX and local                      | Channelised, shared with military, caution operating here. Full UK Licence Only | FT8, SSB. No contests. |
+| 40m  | 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 |
+| 30m  | Open worldwide | Generally closes after sunset | Very narrow HF band | Data/CW only, no voice allowed |
+| 20m  | Open worldwide      | Closes after sunset | Bread and butter HF band. Massively busy during contests. | Everything here. A bit of a zoo. |
+| 17m  | | | "Polite 20m". No contests. | SSB, CW, FT8 |
+| 15m  | | | Big wide allocation, not much traffic | SSB, CW, FT8 |
+| 12m  | | | No contests. | SSB, CW, FT8 |
+| 10m  | 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. |
+| 6m   | 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! |
+| 4m   | 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. |
+| 2m   | 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. |
+| 70cm | 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. |
+| 23cm (1.2GHz) | Normally no atmospheric prop | Normally no atmospheric prop | Is present on IC-9700 | SSB, repeaters, beacons, ATV |
+| 13cm (2.4GHz) | Normally no atmospheric prop | Normally no atmospheric prop| Used as the uplink band for QO-100 geostationary satellite ops. Unfortunately not open to Foundation licence holders | ATV, SSB |
+Notes:
+  * All bands are open all the time within line of sight. This is different from "ground wave".
+  * 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.
+====== Some interesting spot frequencies ======
+^ Band ^ Frequency ^ What/why                          ^
+| 20m  | 14.230    | SSTV. 14.233 is digital SSTV too. |
+| 20m  | 14.074    | 20m FT8                           |
+| 30m  | 10.000    | WWV, American time station        |
+| 80m  |  3.76     | WAB net                           |
+| 40m  |  7.16     | WAB net                           |
+| ...  | ...       | ...                               |