A right old 5 and 8 and no mistake!

Off Topic
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Finally! I found some information on the mysterious world of the 60Mhz, aka the 5 meter band.

A world which really shouldn’t be of mystery here in EI as in 2018 radio amateurs were handed over a whopper portion of the 5 meter band to do as we please. As mentioned elsewhere, Ireland is also one of only 6 countries in the world with access to the 8 meter band -and the only one of those 6 with permanent, no permit required access to almost the full band allocated to amateur use.

But we’re not here for 8 meters, they’re all busy doing the Angelus broadcasts from Italy. We’re here for a cheeky little look, and potentially a quick tickle, of the mysterious 5 meter band. Apparently most countries ditched it and chucked telly and commercial radio on there (I will need to consult my copy of the latest WRTH book to confirm), and yet in 2025 the humble 5 meter band is a playground for Jamon in EI. Fantastic!

So why aren’t we using it?

Is there any radio capable? I spoke to Hans at QRP Labs who mentioned you could make the QMX work on 8 meters but would sacrifice the radio working on 6 meters. He confessed in our conversation that 5 meters was a new one on him and would investigate!

Is there anything else that would work?

I did a bit of delving in to the musty, PG Tips-soaked vaults of our favourite mag, no not Knave or Razzle, but Practical Wireless (support our last radio print mag in UK/Ireland!) and found this absolutely fascinating piece from the February 1978 issue called:

‘The 5 Meter Story’

Have a look at the PDF below and scroll to page 740 for part 1:

Then Part 2 of the story is in the March 1978 issue, page 830:

Finally the conclusion, Part 3, is in the April 1978 issue on page 902:

Part 3 has some nice SOTA and Everest nods (including a 5 meter SOTA activation of Snowdon in June 1935!), before SOTA was SOTA of course, but the activity idea is there. Great historical reading even if you are just curious.

Question on my mind is, if we have access to 5 meters in EI (and other countries, anyone know?), how do we make it happen and get on the air? I’m not knowledgeable enough, but I’m hoping some folks here with bags of experience might be and would greatly value their input.

You never know, 5 meters might make a comeback in the near future!

Bonus Info: I couldn’t find a single video about 5 meter amateur radio on YouTube, and Chat GPT 5 hallucinated and thought I meant 60 meters and there was no such thing as 5 meters!

Information is scant. We have a band doing nothing. Let’s make 5 meters great again! :partying_face:

Bonus Info 2:

These 2 FT8 QSO’s were mentioned in a 2020 issue of the IRTS newsletter, so someone is using 5 meters in EI and Latvia (is that LY? Please correct me if wrong):

2019-08-29: Es EI4GNB - LY2YR FT8 2,036.3 km (1265 miles)

2022-05-18: Tropo EI9KP - EI4GNB FT8 ~205 km
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Cripes, and I thought I was on a mission trying to push the 4M band into more activity! :smiley: :smiley: :smiley:

Good luck…

Alan

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There is a footnote to the RSGB page on 40MHz:

RSGB pioneered 40/60MHz propagation research at GB3RAL in 2007/8, and has subsequently supported its successor at GB3MCB

I couldn’t hear GB3MCB on any of the web SDRs that I tried, but it has been spotted this month on 5m and 8m: DXSummit.fi

I find it strange that 8 m is available in EI, but apparently no possibility of an amateur allocation in GI or anywhere else in the UK.

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It is available in EI for now.

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I’ll try again, apologies! From the Wikipedia 8 meter band page, these are the countries with access to 8 meters and the respective allocations:

Slovenia - S5 - 40.660–40.700 MHz
South Africa - ZS - 40.675–40.685 MHz
Ireland - EI - 40.000–45.000 MHz
Belgium - ON - 40.660–40.690 MHz
Spain - EA - 40.650–40.750 MHz
Italy - I - 40.660–40.700 MHz

For the 5 meter band, I think Latvia or Lithuania might be the only other country with access. I’m not 100% sure, someone here with far better knowledge may know.

5 meter access in EI, for anyone planning a visit :slight_smile: (our 2025 Hamfest is on Sept 6th and 7th, come over for some radio and a bag of cans!), is from 54.000 - 69.900 MHz.

The juicy part of that band plan though is of course 59.800 - 59.900! Oddly, the plan makes mention of a UK beacon at 60.050 MHz and states it is operational. An EI beacon is planned for 60.013 but, far as I am aware, is not up amd running.

Interesting to see too that a portion of the band is set aside for EME. Anyone know what MS and MGM are on the plan?

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As this allocation is specific to EI and the select few countries noted, I assume that in order to operate on 5m and 8m in Ireland an Irish licence would be required. No EI/G4OIG/P or whatever. As for a suitable rig, a wide-banded FT-817 / 857 / 897 should cover 1.8 to 56 MHz, so 8m should be okay, but not 5m. Other radios may have wider coverage… or a modified 4m or 6m transverter would be an option.

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Just to enlarge on that, those rigs have a first IF of 68.33 MHz so an opened up rig should be OK on part of the 5 m band but you should stay clear of the IF.

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Time to track down one of those Yaesu’s perhaps. Thanks for the insight folks, great stuff.

On my travels looking for more on 5 meters, I happened upon this photo of G2WS/P operating portable in 1946 on 5 meters.

Credit to EI7GL for the photo on their blog. While searching the blog I then found this interesting piece about an 8m and 5m pair of transverters from Spectrum Communications in the UK (the same place I bought my Slim G from!).

This looks like it could be a more affordable option to get on to 5 and 8. I might pop the fella there an email and see is he still building those transverters.

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Why?

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I think you’ll find that at one time CEPT operation limited to things in your home licence and in the host country. So if you went to the USA you could only run 400W not 1500W and no 220MHz. That was changed because it’s too hard to figure many things about what you could and could not do. So for CEPT, if you have a licence that gives you a CEPT class 1 licence, when you travel then you get whatever licence is needed in the host country to be CEPT class 1. That means if any EI CEPT 1 holder can use 8/5m then so can a UK licence holder when over there.

There does seem to be some failure to consider the elephant in the room here… 40-50MHz is now allocated to exclusive space to Earth satellite climate radars. Most of the 8m allocations are 100kHz near 40MHz and it’s only EI with huge swathes of the 40-50MHz allocated and I don’t see how that can continue once the satellites get launched. Though if like Gallileo and our 23cm allocation, that was allocated to GNSS in 2000 and it’s only 2023 that restrictions started being applied to amateur use.

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That’s what I have and had to pass the Morse test to upgrade from CEPT Class 2, which grants the permissions which you rightly stated.

Bit more info here for folks wishing to visit EI and play radio:

You can have CEPT 1 or 2 to operate on HF in EI.

That’s how I interpret it too. Though CEPT 2 is permitted to operate too.

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Just to follow up, I did send an email today and just received a reply. Sadly Antony never made those transverters for 5 and 8.

Alas that dream is now vanished. I wonder if SG Lab or Khule might make them? Or if its possible to DIY one? Failing that it looks like an 897, 857 or 818 wide-banded.

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i would think that any rig covering 6m that can be opened up may be able do the job, the limiting factor might be how tight the receiver band pass input circuit is, sensitivity will fall off as you tune away from 50-54 MHz and images might become a problem. If you have, say, a seperate FT8*7 dedicated for the job then a tweak of the band-pass could help.

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Found another potential candidate. Looks like a bit of work though, way beyond my limited technical ability!

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