SPARC 900MHz

W3IHM, Sam, presented the 900MHz band at the SPARC member meeting.

1926 - first regulation of amateur radio
- before 1926, ban on anything belowe 200m
  - amateurs could do anything they want above 1.5MHz
First regulations defined bands
- harmonically related
Amateurs imposed legislation for technical reasons
900MHz has been available to hams since 1926
People wanted broadcast interference from ham radio gone in mid 1920s
1930s - allow anything above 110MHz
1935 - people were getting up to 3200MHz with magnetrons (spinning electron)
Commercial broadcastsers pushed hams into bands and out of lower bands in 1920s when we started figuring out propagation in the ionosphere, and they wanted to broadcast around the world.
war-1940 - we’re allowed above 300MHz
1941 - all ham radio is shutdown for war
1947 - military is reluctant to give back bands
- bands shifted around a little
- allowed up to 300GHz
1952 - added 15M
1979 - added WARC bands (12, 17, 30)
1986 - 33cm
2002 - 60M
2016 - 2200M, 630M
Will we get 8M, 5M, and 4M like other parts of the world?

900MHz-928MHz
Feed line loss is double that of 440MHz
Antenna loss
Atmospheric loss
Simplex is pretty dismal
Bounces well, like off airplanes
- Once got Harrisburg to Philly bouncing off an airplane
- Hit repeaters with Yagis and bounces
It’s a shared band with some other services.

Power meters are everywhere in the middle of the band, and the noise causes the FM squelch to stay closed.
Everyone’s trying to use the slivers on the end to avoid interference.
Amplifiers can overcome the noisy power meters.
Surplus amplifiers and antennas can be cheap.
K3LV has a repeater in the area.
Use it or lose it (already to the power meters).
Power meters may go away after a while to move up to 2.4GHz
Lots of competition for 900MHz - 2GHz - goes through the atmosphere easily.

900mhz meeting sparc