Monthly Archives: February 2017

JT65 UK Band Plan and how to stay within

The 5 MHz band is pretty cool and I’ve written about it before however out the box, JT65 allows you to very easily transmit out of band on 60m band. The segment we’re interested in the UK is the freq block between 5.354 and 5.358. This has taken me a little while to get to grips with this because although the band-police are complaining – and the RSGB has also warned users, nobody is giving a clear instruction on how to achieve staying completely within the band allocated to us.

In the UK therefore, there’s a couple of simple steps to take to make sure you won’t transmit out of band.

If you don’t have JT65 already, get it here: http://jt65-hf.com/downloads/.

Run the installer and interface your rig as you would any other piece of software that connects to your computer. If you are after help with that part of the problem, there are other places to hunt solutions down, not this blog.

Go to file > Settings and click the Frequency tab at the top and edit the frequency for the 5 MHz band so it reads 5.356.

File > Settings > Frequencies

File > Settings > Frequencies

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40m compact fan dipole for 40, 30 and 20m bands

One of my aerials has just come down in the wind, a 40m compact dipole arranged as an inverted V with the ends coming down as far as the 6 feet fence height.

My garden is about 15m wide (actually it’s 51 feet wide, so a whisker over) however it’s too small to fit in full-sized flat-top dipole but an inverted V works well. Whilst you are at it, why not add in elements for 30m and 20m and have three bands on one feeder?

40-30-20m-fan-dipole

Width of this antenna is 15m. You can make it smaller to suit.

I have designed this antenna to be a flat top with droopy legs. The centre will be held up with a very sturdy aluminium scaffold pole with a 4.6m sailboard mast sleeved over the top. The aluminium mast will cross-bolt to an already installed steel scaffold bar already concreted in the ground. Bottom line is that I should achieve around 10m in height (30 feet or so).

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Introduction to the 60m Band Plan (5 MHz)

60m is an interesting band. it’s partly channelised into small segments and the propagation is a cross-breed of 40m and 80m.The band was first introduced apparently in 2002. Over the years, various countries have allowed their amateurs radio operators to use the band. All this is negotiated and approved in conjunction with the ITU World Radiocommunication Conference(s). Many countries are now “on air” and can be heard. Be careful though, their frequencies may be different to ours.

In the UK, this boils down to 100 Watts maximum transmitter power and 200 Watts effective radiated power (* see note). Only Advanced licence holders are allowed on 60M band. You used to obtain a NOV however I believe that’s finished now.

To get around remembering everything, it’s probably best just to set up some memories in your HF set. I don’t know about you, but all these fancy rigs come with memories – and we never use them. Well, I didn’t up until now. 60m is ideal for getting up to speed with these Memories (and you can scan the channels too which is something else few of us know how to work!).

The following table should be able to set you up for your HF set memories (as at February 2017).

Frequencies: Upper Side Band (USB)

  • 60m-band-plan5.298.50
  • 5.301.00
  • 5.304.00
  • 5.320.00
  • 5.335.00
  • 5.354.00
  • 5.379.00
  • 5.395.00
  • 5.398.50
  • 5.403.00

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5.137 MHz 60m AM transmission test

So I’ve been fooling around on 60m band lately on SSB as well as CW and digital modes.Today I decided to see if using AM might strike it lucky for me.

AM is a mode I remember from my youth. All the original imported CB sets were AM at that time and I seem to recall that I enjoyed the sound quality. Somehow it’s more relaxing than FM. Maybe its because you don’t need squelch, I really don’t know. FM has great clarify but AM just has a roundness to it.

TS990s on AM

TS990s on AM

Most modern radio sets come with the ability to transmit on AM but there’s an element of setting up, for instance with an old fashioned AM CB radio, you probably don’t set up the carrier and then adjust the microphone gain to achieve the modulation.The good news is that out the box, my TS990s seemed to transmit AM pretty well. I have an additional benefit in that the AM carrier on the TS990s is 50 watts, with voice peaks naturally falling at around 100 watts, perfect for maximum juice on the 60m band which limits our power to 100 watts anyway.

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