If that's your attitude, why did you bother going to the trouble of getting licensed in the first place? ... and in fact, not just getting licensed, but upgrading from Tech to General?
This is the kind of thing that happens when certain parts of the spectrum are all but abandoned by those who they are allocated to. 2 meters, although not a long distance band can be quite a bit of fun, well it used to be anyway when people used it. Suddenly we have radios being built that do 160-70cm AM/FM/CW and SSB and all you hear is silence unless you're using the "telephone" (repeaters). So with the quest for space people who want that space make a case. Nobody is ever there so why can't we have it? That's a hard argument to defend against. It's not like 6, 10, 12 and even 15. When they're open they are in use! On any given day with 100 watts and a good INEXPENSIVE beam I can make SSB Q's out to 300 or more miles. There's plenty of ops out here in that range. I guess my question is why do you have to be talking to someone 1000 or more miles away? Get on 2 and call CQ. The more people who do it the more who will be there to listen and participate. I can rag chew with a guy in Arizona in the middle of winter and complain about how cold it is here or I can rag chew with a guy whose antenna is on top of his apartment building in NYC, 300 miles away and listen to him complain about the garbage on the street under the 14 inches of snow Hi Hi! Even a guy 75 or 80 miles away, what's the difference, you're having a chat, you called CQ? Pretty soon if we don't start using the band the same thing will happen here.
Well said. I have no interest in 2m and wouldn't notice if it went away, but it's a shame that all of these people suddenly coming out of the woodwork about how precious 2m is to them, aren't using the band so that the ARRL has a basis for defending it. Here in Ohio it is dead, outside of a few special events.
2m FM is NOTHING like it used to be here in FN02. But you still have satellite, HSMS, and weak-signal on those bands. 144.174 MHz FT8 is popular around here, and even THEN...there's always EME. KB2HSH
In my neck of the woods (Northern WI and Michigan Upper Peninsula), there are numerous unlicensed 2 meter mobile operators using VHF as an upgrade from CB radio. They are on mostly for hunting activities. I don't think the FCC is going to try to police the north woods. This won't work. Additionally- As a pilot and a Radio Amateur I am very aware of the antiquated waste of spectrum represented by aviation communications. They abandon antique navigation equipment frequently (VOR's and NDB's). The AM voice channels are a huge waste of spectrum. Aviation has plenty of bandwidth, they need to manage it better.
I understand the Paris climate convention indicated the need to minimize air travel, and bovine methane gas expulsion, among many other things. It may stand to reason that trains, and ships, will not need this spectrum, once the planes are all scrapped out.
German radio amateurs are well organizised and our DARC is doing his job well. Germany is close to France and we heard very early about the danger of loosing 2 metres. I am wondering, that other neighbour countries e.g. The Netherlands, Denmark... etc. are not acting immediately. The reason might be the DARC with a lot of personnel power and good financial situation. We have to be more than vigilant! We should all inform all who are dealing with that. I am 66 years and I do not want to see in my life that we are leaving the 2 metres band.
If AM is changed to SSB they will have twice as many frequencies , then if the speak English the have an other 1/3.
The same thing is coming to the 2M band in USA. Corporate money buys Government officials. Everyone thinks it's cool to use DMR, EchoLink and various other VHF digital modes to the point analog repeaters are dead. Once officials catch wind of inactive segments, they will take them away because no one is using them. The digital guys will be crammed in a tiny space and everything else will be off limits. "Use it or lose it" turned into, "don't worry, they will never take it" yet now it is becoming, "Damn, they are taking it".
