New Amateur Radio bands in Europe

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Polish radio hams have access to two new amateur radio bands

As the National Table of Frequency Allocations has been amended, there are two new bands available to the Polish radio amateurs: the 472-479 kHz band (up to 1W e.i.r.p.), and the 122.250-123.000 GHz band - both allocated to the Amateur Service on a secondary basis.

According to the Regulation of the Council of Ministers of 27th December 2013 (Journal of Laws of the Republic of Poland of 3rd February 2014, item 161), the relevant amendments will enter into force on 18th February 2014.

New amateur radio bands have been allowed in Bulgaria.

In the future LZ hams will be able to use bands 472-479 kHz, 5250-5450 kHz, 70.0-70.5 MHz and in addition 1.8 MHz band has been extended up to 2 MHz.

All those bands have to be used on secondary basis.

IARU Region 1 - http://www.iaru-r1.org/

RaDAR Contest

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The Rapid Deployment Amateur Radio (RaDAR)-America Contest has been announced for April 2014

The RaDAR contest happens the first Saturday of April and November. This is a great time to be outdoors in the Americas. The contest period is four hours 1400 UTC to 1800 UTC. The four hours means time is of the essence. This makes planning and practice before the contest important.

For more information, visit - http://radar-america.blogspot.com

New Worcester UHF repeater goes on-air

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The Worcester UHF (70cms) repeater, GB3WU, has received its NoV for operation from the Worcester Radio Amateur's Association (WRAA) club shack in Worcester.

GB3WU was installed by Mike G8TIC and Peter G0WXJ at midday on Sunday, 9th February and test transmissions were made between 12.06 and 12.20 UTC. The repeater became operational at 12.25 after installation was completed.

GB3WU is a "wide split" (7.6MHz) repeater that operates on channel RU66

(430.8250MHz output; 438.4250MHz input) and is accessed by CTCSS sub-tone freuqency 118.8Hz (tone code "J").

The repeater comprises a Tait TB7100 base-station with an NHRC-4 controller at this time. The controller may be upgraded at a later date to link it to the Allstar network in the Midlands and South West...

In order to access the repeater you must radiate the 118.8Hz subtone on your transmission on the input frequency. The repeater will return its callsign in Morse code on first access after being idle for an extended period and will return a 3-tone rising beep as the courtesy tone and drop carrier after approx 2 seconds.

The repeater runs approx 15W RF in to the combiner, splitter and coax to achieve 10W at the antenna which is a 4dBd gain WX1 VHF/UHF colinear and achieves the 25W ERP (14dBW) licensed power. The antenna is at approximately 8m AGL and the site is approximately 80m AGL.

Summary

  • Callsign: GB3WU
  • Location: 1Km NE Worcester City Centre, IO82VE
  • Channel: RU66
  • Output frequency: 430.8250MHz
  • Input frequency: 438.4250MHz
  • CTCSS tone: 118.8Hz
  • Toneburst access: No