It seems the band plans are absolutely packed with bands for repeaters, satellites, cw, ssb, slow scan tv, etc. As a new ham is there a easy diagram of the frequency spectrum of what I CAN use just for simple beginner voice transmissions?
What band are you looking to operate on? I’d say most of us got our start on repeaters so I’d say that’s the place for a simple beginner voice transmission. If you haven’t seen it yet you can use this site to help find ones near you:
https://www.repeaterbook.com/index.php/en-us/
Otherwise there are 2m and 70cm calling frequencies, I believe 146.52 and 446.00, but repeaters would be more populated.
On VHF and up, each state will have their own bandplans. Look up the bandplan for your state and look for simplex frequencies.
The nation wide FM calling frequencies for 6m, 2m, 1.25m & 70cm are 52.525 MHz, 146.52 MHz, 223.5 MHz & 446 MHz.
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The FCC sets what parts of the bands can be used for phone and what’s CW or data only. Apart from that everything is basically a gentleman’s agreement. Since HF can go a long ways, there’s no point making local band plans for it. VHF and up is shorter range and some areas have different needs than others. There are frequency coordinators that handle the band plans and repeater pair assignments. Some states have more than one frequency coordinator for different parts of the state. Some frequency coordinators only handle repeater pairs and don’t publish a band plan.
