National Bodies Protect 70cm Band

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National Bodies Protect 70cm Band

ARRL The National Association for Amateur Radio® has filed comments with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to oppose part of an application that would impact the 70-centimeter amateur band for telemetry, tracking and command (TT&C) of satellites. The application, from AST & Science, LLC (AST), requests “unprecedented authorization to 430-440 MHz for a constellation totaling 248 satellites to communicate with five ground stations using up to five channels with up to 256 kHz bandwidth.”

The formal opposition, filed by ARRL’s Washington Counsel, asserts that the permission AST seeks to use the 430 – 440 MHz band “should be denied because AST does not demonstrate need for TT&C spectrum beyond that available within existing allocations.”

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PRESENTER OPINION :Get a load of this…→

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PRESENTER OPINION :Get a load of this…

Ground-mounted verticals are all the rage these days in portable HF operations. This is particularly true in POTA activations. We all like to get extra mileage out of our verticals in terms of their frequency range and efficiency, no?

One method is to add an inductor to the radiating element to extend what its length looks like for RF resonance. Some versions of this are to bottom-load the vertical (Wolf River Coils does this with their Sporty Forty coil) as well as center-load it (as does Chelegance does with some of their JPC line of verticals). There are top-loaded designs, too.

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PRESENTER OPINION : A POTA Procedural Proposal→

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PRESENTER OPINION : A POTA Procedural Proposal

I often do POTA activations with two friends: Paul, KW1L and Rick, K8BMA. We almost always operate CW. On a recent activiation, Paul asked if there was a way to do a joint activation like many phone operators do. If you hunt phone POTA activators, they often say something like, “Stand by for a second operator,” then the second operator gets on and makes their contact.

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