[Elecraft] 60m band in the UK

Mon Dec 9 10:29:01 2002

On 9 Dec 2002 at 4:01, K9DC wrote:

> ???  60m would be a U.S. only allocation. There has been some consideration
> in the U.K. to a nearby but different frequency band, but those are the only
> countries even thinking about it so far. Hardly "all the other countries in
> the world..."

'consideration' is not the right word. Since September the UK 
licencing authority has been issuing special permits to operate in 
the UK allocation (5 channels at 5.26, 5.28, 5.29, 5.40 and 5.405MHz) 
which cover the same area of band as the proposed USA allocation. 
They have issued around 800 of those permits, but have temporarily 
stopped at the moment to prevent congestion of the band. Strictly 
speaking this is for an exeriment into NVIS propogation, but to all 
intents and purposes the UK now has an official amateur allocation in 
the 60m band.

There was an operation under special licence from VA2BY at the end of 
October who worked several UK operators (but not me!) and was heard 
at good signals over here.  VO1MRC operated under a similar licence 
at the end of November and more events are promised.

Although interest has been expressed from other countries, as far as 
I know the UK and experimental permits from VE and the USA are the 
only actual operations at the moment.

See my website for details of the 5W VXO transmitter I am using on 
60m. I am using the K2 as the receiver with an external receive 
converter, which works very well.

73s Dave G3YMC

[email protected]
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http://www.dsergeant.btinternet.co.uk