A pity we don’t have an 8m (40MHz) band.

An amateur band at 40MHz would be really useful as I suspect the F2 MUF has been in this region several times in the last few years. There are a very few beacons around 40MHz (UK and Denmark only I believe) but wouldn’t it be good to have even 100kHz around this frequency? Sadly it is very unlikely, but I would happily lose 100kHz at the top of 10m in exchange.   It would also be a very useful Es band.

Somehow I can’t see this happening, more is the pity.  The world of radio science would really benefit. This would have been so much more useful than 146-147MHz recently released to UK amateurs by NoV.  I know a handful of UK amateurs are trying narrowband DTV but the 2m band is mainly Japanese “black boxes” and is mostly white noise in most areas.

Roger Lapthorn, G3XBM, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Cambridge, England.

5 Responses to “A pity we don’t have an 8m (40MHz) band.”

  • gw4ozu Peter:

    Maybe someone could submit a proposal at the WARC conference later this year although I do know that this is regularly by the military in the UK.

  • Mike Muranetz, VE6MM:

    Would be a great band to use for surplus military FM rigs. Give us more bands to play than 6 meters.
    73

    Mike

  • Jason ke7tdy:

    New Ham Bands are always cool! For experimentation and to help bridge the gaps in the current bands [like 60m, being between 40 and 80 … so when 40 is too “noisy” but there’s no real propagation on 80 … well then lets try 60!]

    It takes time to get used to the new bands [like your new 2m allocation there in the UK … here 2m is uber popular for repeaters and simplex! … maybe in time it will become more popular there [I mean the new frequencies you have on 2m]

    Does anybody know what 8 meteres [40MHz] is allocated for currently?
    73 all
    ~j

  • PA1FJ:

    We have 50 MHz and 70 MHz where activity is hardly what should we with 40 MHz?

    73 Fred

  • Keith KI4IES:

    It is always great to get new frequencies or more room to “stretch out” to try new things and new antennas etc. but as Fred mentioned the activity is low on 6 and 440 MHZ for one reason or another so what would make this “new” band any different? Shouldn’t we think about fully utilizing what we do have before adding even more?

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