[Boatanchors] Fasten your seatbelts

[Glen Zook]

One thing is that Europe has gone to the +/- 2.5 kHz deviation rather than the +/- 5 kHz deviation used here in North America.  Equipment now being sold often has a "narrow" FM position which drops the deviation from +/- 5 kHz to +/- 2.5 kHz.

Today people are calling the +/- 5 kHz deviation "wideband".  However, to those of us who were using FM in the late 1950s and the 1960s, +/- 5 kHz deviation is "narrowband" and "wideband" was the +/- 15 kHz deviation that was the commercial standard before 1957 (for lowband and highband) and before 1967 for UHF.  The "drop dead" date for conversion to "narrowband" was 1962 for lowband and highband for all services except public safety and those services had until 1967 to get all the equipment modified.

Glen, K9STH

Website:  http://k9sth.com