UK Six Meter New Band Plan UKSMG

Club News Special From UKSMG September 2011

Special Club News From UKSMG September 2011

When we sent you the last edition of Club News we were awaiting publication of the minutes from the 22nd IARU Region 1 general conference held in Sun City on 12th to 19th August and in particular details of bandplan changes to six metres.

Well, they have now been published and the new bandplan comes into “force” on 1st January 2012, not very far away. We would therefore like to ask you to pass information about the changes on to your members so that transition can be as smooth as possible.

In summary, there is more bandwidth for both CW and SSB users which has been gained by moving the existing beacon band above 50.4MHz but to ensure that there is still early warning of increasing MUF a new beacon “sub” band has been created in the bottom 30 KHz of the band allocated in 10 KHz segments by region. The technical standards for this new synchronised beacon segment are still to be finally agreed but they will use a standardised CW and MGM identification system. To aid transition operation in this portion of the band should be avoided. All beacon moves should be completed by the end of 2014.

The telegraphy, cw, allocation now starts from 50.030 with 50.050 reserved for future use as an International calling frequency while 50.090 should be used for Intercontinental calling – this frequency should not be used for calling within the European part of region 1 at any time.

50.100 to 50.200 is now allocated for Intercontinental and International usage for both CW and SSB with 50.100 to 50.130 specified for Intercontinental usage. 50.110 is designated for Intercontinental calling and 50.150 as the International activity centre.

50.200 to 50.300 is for general cw and ssb usage with 50.285 designated as the crossband calling frequency.

50.300 to 50.400 is reserved for MGM modes with PSK centre of activity at 50.305 and allocations for EME at 50.310 to 50.320 and Meteor Scatter at 50.320 to 50.380.

50.400 to 50.500 is the re-allocated beacon band.

Above 50.500 is reserve for modes with a bandwidth less than 12 KHz including activity centres for SSTV on 50.510, RTTY on 50.560 and 51.510 is now the FM calling channel.

Copies of the new bandplan can be viewed at http://www.uksmg.org under the UKSMG top menu tab -> Bandplans, and downloaded in .pdf format from the Downloads section under the same UKSMG tab. A short video presentation can be seen at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWPVUWo4g3A