[NLRS] Suggested FM Simplex Freqs For Radio Contesting

[Dr. Gerald N. Johnson]

On 12/15/2012 3:29 PM, Richard Clem wrote:
>
>
> It's been a few years since I did any rover operation, but almost all of my FM
> activity on 2 meters has been on 146.55.  In the Twin Cities, I've
> occasionally put out calls on 146.46, since it seems to be the NLRS calling
> frequency.  But I don't think I've ever made an FM QSO outside the Twin Cities
> on anything other than 55.
>
> So that would be my vote.  However, the only thing I'm not sure about is
> whether this frequency is used in states with 20 KHz repeater spacing.  If
> those states use a 20 KHz frequency, then it might be best to specify one of
> the common channels between the 30 and 20 kHz areas, namely, 146.46 or
> 146.58.
>
> I think all of my other FM QSO's have been on 223.5 or 446.0.  I don't think
> I've ever worked anyone on 6 meter FM, contest or no contest, although I
> occasionally put out a call on 52.525.
>
> I think an FM category is a great idea, since there are a lot of people with
> FM rigs, most of whom have probably decided that there's nothing interesting
> to do with the rig.  To encourage activity, it might be worth considering
> having one or more "big gun" stations concentrating on FM from "exotic"
> locations.    That station could do most of the heavy lifting to work modest
> stations.  For example, I bet a well-equipped station in St. Cloud or Eau
> Claire could work quite a few mobile stations in the Twin Cities, or even guys
> with HT's from good locations.  Perhaps offer a special QSL or some type of
> award for FM stations making the "DX" contact.  I would even consider
> soliciting contacts on repeaters.  That would disqualify the station for that
> contest, but I think it would pique the interest of a lot of FM-only ops if
> they realize that they can word "DX" from their mobile rig or even handheld.
> I suspect that such a strategy would pay off for everyone in the _next_
> contest.

That big gun might an EME station with rotatable polarization. Troubles 
are most EME stations use transverters from HF that leaves out FM, 
preamps often are narrow banded to cut back on overload from repeater 
outputs (and 152 MHz pagers), and large arrays of yagis optimized for 
144.000 tend to be poor above 145, just the nature of large yagi arrays.
Otherwise there is so much signal lost to crossed polarization that the 
big gun station would have to duplicate the horizontally polarized 
antennas to be effective for FM. There is one station in central Iowa 
who bravely each contest tries to work SSB with a vertical and he gets 
very few contacts because of the cross polarization. He'd do better on 
SSB with a simple halo at elevation than he does with the vertical gain 
antenna.
>
> Now that I think about this, I wonder if a similar FRS/GMRS event with
> suitable prior publicity might get a few people interested in Ham Radio in the
> first place.  I think many people would be blown away to learn that their
> cheap FRS radio can be used to make contacts several miles away (to someone in
> a tall building).

But is the contest antenna big gun power and antenna legal in FRS/GMRS? 
Isn't that service limited by field strength, power, and antenna size 
purposely to keep it from competing with the part 70 licensed UHF 
services? Like 11m in theory?
>
> 73,
> Rick W0IS
>
>
73, Jerry, K0CQ