HFU HF Underground
General Category => Amateur Radio => Topic started by: Matt285 on September 30, 2019, 1258 UTC
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What happened to 220 Mhz? I know at one time it was fairly popular. Not sure exactly why. Im guessing 2m/440 just gained more popularity. Does anyone in your area still make use of this band?
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Yeah, I still do. It is a nice band, for sure. If you go to hamfest, and the group of friend that you have happen to have 222 MHz HT's, Y'all can have the band to yourselves without desense, walking over each other, lower noise from computers, near out of band interference, etc. It has very slightly less range than 2M, but better than 440MHz. I ran into 222MHz EME enthusiasts that loved the 222 band for EME work. Nice S/N ratio, and about the only interference was a close-by VHF TV CH13, but that's about it. Unfortunately, they could really only make contacts to North American stations. The 222 band is also more sensitive to Temperature Inversions as well, more so than 144MHz. During the VHF ARRL Sweepsteaks, it's another very necessary band, due to double points per contact. Even use to include 222 capabilities for Field Day. And the National simplex FREQ of 223.500MHz FM? The few of us that have it can talk there all day long. Now, you'd think that with the up and coming DV (Digital Voice.), modes that 222MHz would be utilized more with that. In the 70's and 80's, 222 was used a lot for repeater linking, with better reliability than 430MHz. So, I'd certainly would like to use it more. Unfortunately, with mainly North America being the primary user of the band, overseas manufacturers pretty much ignore it, compared to the 1.2GHz band. Even 902MHz is starting to get more attention, which is good, but 902MHz, and especially 2.4GHz, is pretty much trashed with Part #15 phones, baby monitors, wi-fi, etc. 1.2GHz is gangbusters in Japan, thus the availability in gear there. I hope that 222MHz can be resurrected. I was hoping that the Icom IC-9700 would include it. My Kenwood TS-2000X receives 222MHz FM / AM modes, but doesn't TX there. For that the Kenwoods, TM-741A, TM-3035A, TM-631A, and TH-F6A, for my 222MHz FM needs. Albeit the TH-F6A does RX in SSB and CW modes there. So, is there 222 hope? That's up to our use of it, or the lack of it.
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UPS (the brown truck folks) and the FCC is what happened to 220.
That aside, there's usually repeaters for 220 in most areas populated by HAMs, but traffic is slight compared to 2m and 70cm.
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UPS (the brown truck folks) and the FCC is what happened to 220.
And UPS ended up not even using the band after all.
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Yep, they should give it back but apparently other biz moved in.
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The obstacle to 220 when I first got licenced (1991) was that equipment was not as easy to find and when you did it was expensive, which is doubly hard to swallow when you suddenly find out there is no one else on the band! Now with lots of Chicom radios with 222 capability that might be a game changer? Our local machine went back on the air after a 20 years hiatus and is getting some fair usage -- and lots of that is from owners of Chicom rigs (guilty as charged here as well).
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Me too, 2 years ago. My review of the B-Tech UV-25X4, https://www.eham.net/reviews/detail/13440 (Mine is The Perks And Jerks one.) The 222MHz side is really the only thing useful to me, since the RX on VHF-high and UHF just suffers too much from out of band IMD. Not a problem on 222MHz, at least. Needless to say, I took that rig out of my truck, due to the IMD and put that TM-241A 2M rig back in. Go with what works. And, it's still true, ya get what ya pay for.