Two Meter Band Plan: Ham Radio Q and A Episode 5

A popular landing spot for most new amateur radio operators is the two meter band. With the popularity of inexpensive handheld radios like this one, and the proliferation of two meter repeaters, it’s no wonder this is the new Technician’s first experience with ham radio. But the 2 meter band isn’t all voice and repeaters. Today we are going to talk about band plans, how they organize the two meter band, and what you can expect to find in between 144 and 148 Mhz.

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ARRL Band Plans:

Icom America Band Plan Chart
(The one I hold up in the intro)

International Space Station Frequencies

[ryankitfb]

This is the most informative video I have seen on VHF. Thank you Michael. I also own that shirt and love it.

[learnshareevolve]

Very helpful breakdown of this segment if the spectrum; thank you!

[teamsalvation]

Unfortunately, you did not explain why the band plan is split up into multiple rows. For example, why 144.9 --> 145.1 split up into Simplex AND Digital? In the 6meter Band Plan, 52.05-->53.0 is both Repeater and Simplex... Does this mean both types of communication can occur on that range? In the case of a repeater, the "established" repeater takes precedence, however, what about Simplex & Data? The basic rule of "First Come"?

Thank you.

[joeddejohn]

Have plans to explore this band further. Wonder if this band will gain in popularity.

[Defilan]

Great overview of 2m, Michael! Thanks for the post! 73 de N7CPM

[falcorthewonderdog]

2 meter is an under used band in my opinion. Traveling across the country monitoring 2 meter its disappointing that its basically silent. I have repeater frequencies programed and use scsn mode and find little sctivity. I even have my call sign on the back of my RV and "monitoring 146.52" for years and have never made a contact from it on my travels. Kind of a disappointment.

[nickc]

Excellent video. Plethora of knowledge

[gemmieb]

that was great thanks for the info still studing to get ticket you did a great job on this

[Dbigpinoy]

This would be great segments if he did this for each band..

[willieyoung]

Can a novice license holder operate on 2 meater

[whiskeydick]

Is there a way to get a personal/private frequencys? I do events and provide medical coverage and everybody has a ham radio and I don't want everybody to have to buy new radios.

[jeansroses]

Hi all-extreme newbie here.I just got licensed, but I've found that I now have a lot of pragmatic questions, such as:
How far away do I have to be from the other ham I am wanting to contact on vhf line-of-sight? I just want to test our radios

[jeansroses]

Hi! another (dumb) question. I programmed the repeater into my baofeng bf f8hp, and I'm pretty sure I got all the settings right. But I have two problems/issues:
When I "query" the repeater, I get something back-lights, etc., but no sound. Also, someone had tried to call me on a particular freq; I could see he connected with me but I couldn't hear him. I turned the squelch all the way to 0, but no change.
I can't get warranty service cuz it was a gift-no receipt.
the other isse is that, after putting into mem the simplex freq, when I go to use it, I push the ptt button and it goes to an offset freq (as with the repeater). How do I get it to not go to an offset for "send" on simplex? I can't find anything in the book that mentions that,

[sparky_klystron_wzot]

Ugh, hallway monitor. Where's his little badge.

[URUNV]

And we have only 144-146MHz on 2m🥲
UR4UNV