A Tour of the Ham Bands DC to Daylight

VLF Bands NOT available in U.S. 73 Khz Khz Khz. 500 Khz. All limited to very low power – generally Morse Code only -

160 Meter/ Mhz General Class and higher Voice and CW Popular for regional communications at night Requires very large antennas (240 ft.) for efficient operation – most people use smaller

80 Meters/ Mhz. CW ( Technician) Digital Voice (SSB and AM, mostly) Regional communication in daytime Long distance possible at night Dipole antenna 132 feet long

60 Meters / 5 Mhz. Our newest ham ‘band’ The only ‘channelized’ ham band 5 ‘spot frequencies’ shared with Federal government/ Coast Guard/ Homeland Security 50 watts / antenna limits Becoming a popular regional band

40 Meters/ Mhz. CW 7.0 – ( Tech) Voice Digital Popular daytime regional band Long haul band at night This band has recently improved due to the removal of shortwave broadcasting

30 Meters/ Mhz CW/Digital only – 200 watts max General Class and higher Excellent worldwide propagation most of the time

20 Meters/ Mhz. General Class and higher CW and Digital Only Voice and SSTV Our PREMIER daytime HF band Open in daytime in winter/24 hrs in summer

17 Meters/ General Class and higher – CW and digital Voice Similar propagation to 20 meters

15 Meters/ Mhz CW and digital Technician CW Voice Daytime DX band – worldwide propagation Dipole 22 feet long Not very useful when sunspots low

12 Meters/ Mhz CW and digital Voice General and higher Worldwide communications when open Greatly affected by sunspots Eskip – short skip common

10 Meters/ Mhz CW/Digital (Techs, too!) 28.3 – 29.7 Voice (SSB, AM, limited FM) 28.3 – 28.5 Technician SSB FM voice, satellites Very popular – low power/small antennas, work the world Eskip Severely impacted by sunspots

6 meters/50-54 Mhz. Technician band CW only SSB calling frequency Mhz. – ‘DX Window’ – stay out of here unless working stations overseas Primarily a local band –SSB range normally 200 miles Eskip common in summer, midwinter Meteor scatter popular here

2 meters/ Mhz Technician band Repeaters common Primarily used for local FM voice Some use SSB –SSB range miles typical Skip is very unusual Tropo scatter/ducting

1.25 Meters/ Mhz Similar to 2 meters Also includes special Mhz. high speed digital allocation Not as popular as 2 meters –Band not available worldwide –Limited commercial equipment available

¾ Meter/ Mhz. Our lowest UHF band FM Mhz call frequency Part of band not available in north ATV SSB on Dipole is about 12 inches long Band shared with many other services –we are SECONDARY here

33CM/ Mhz U.S. only ham band No commercial equipment Many hams use converted commercial radios here Difficult to convert radios for ‘simplex’

Microwave bands 2.3 Ghz – weak signal, satellite, networking 3.3 Ghz – networks 5.6 Ghz.- weak signal, Ghz. – weak signal 24 Ghz – weak signal Many higher bands – All are ‘line of sight’ -