Interpreting IARU Band Plans

grundie

Hello,

I' currently studying for the exam in a few weeks and I'm having a bit of bother memorising the band plans.

Some band plain lines refer to "All Modes - digimodes" for a specified frequency range. Does that mean all modes so long as they are digimodes, or all modes including digimodes.

Apologies if I am overlooking soemthing really obvious.

pixbyjohn

I would think it is all modes including digimodes

brownmini

grundie wrote: »

Hello,

I' currently studying for the exam in a few weeks and I'm having a bit of bother memorising the band plans.

Can you post a link to the relevant bandplan so 'we' can all have a look and take it from there please?

pixbyjohn

There you are.
http://www.irts.ie/downloads/Region_1_Band_Plan_HF.pdf

Excerpt >
Band: 1810 - 1838 200 CW, 1836 kHz - QRP Centre of Activity 1838 - 1840 500 Narrow band modes
1840 - 1843 2700 All modes – digimodes, (*) 1843 - 2000 2700 All modes, (*)
Radio Amateurs

brownmini

grundie wrote: »

Hello,

I' currently studying for the exam in a few weeks and I'm having a bit of bother memorising the band plans.

Some band plain lines refer to "All Modes - digimodes" for a specified frequency range. Does that mean all modes so long as they are digimodes, or all modes including digimodes.

Apologies if I am overlooking soemthing really obvious.

OK based on the link posted, I agree with PIXBYJOHN.

The reason the term NARROWBAND MODES is being used is to get you used to the term.
Many years ago, the bands were split up based on the name of the mode.
e.g. CW, RTTY, AMTOR, SSTV, SSB
Nowadays the move is on to clump/group the modes of similar bandwidth together.
Therefore I suggest that ''Narrow band modes - digimodes'' means Narrow band modes for example/including xxxxx unless mentioned on the next line.

You'll notice that there are two sections for Narrowband modes, one doesnt mention unattended stuff the next one does.

Thats about it.

Anyone else ?????

watty

And some digital modes are same width as SSB, some are less than RTTY

So "narrowband modes" means CW, RTTY, PSK31 etc, i.e. a few hundred Hz at most. MUCH less than 1kHz

But not
DRM (or other Digital Modes that are 1KHz to 3KHz), SSTV, SSB, AM, NBFM

brownmini

grundie wrote: »

Hello,

I' currently studying for the exam in a few weeks and I'm having a bit of bother memorising the band plans.

Well ???

How did you get on ?

The reason I ask this question after every exam is to try and get people to
talk about the exam so that those coming next can benefit from your
experience.



[General idea]
If there was a thread on this board that could be added to after each
exam then it would help those doing the next exam and so on.

I'm not suggesting that every question on the paper be published but there
must be some questions that could cause some debate,discussion or plain
ol' ''well I never knew that'' amongst some of us. :-)

Our man in Havana

The IRTS would have kittens.

brownmini

Our man in Havana wrote: »

The IRTS would have kittens.

Don't see why they should [have kittens].
In the days of City&Guilds, past papers were readily available.
Even the colleges and universities around Ireland make their past papers
available to students.
Leaving Cert, Inter Cert, Junior Cert all have past papers available.
Therefore I suggest that a discussion on the questions of a previous
amateur radio exam can't be objectionable.

I suggest this as a way to prepare students for the exam itself even
though many who have done the classes will probably have done some
past questions anyway but not everyone studies for the radio exam in a
class situation.

73

watty

Agreed.

Though past papers are no substitute for actually learning stuff! The past papers just let you see the stupid/wrong answers so you can be confident about what you know. Using them to test if you do know as a "mock" exam is FAR more value than studying or learning past papers.

Learn the syllabus, the subject not the "papers". Nor should study end with the exam unless all you want is a to be a legal 400W CB operator. Shame it's not still called "Wireless Experimenter". When the UK introduced the label "Amateur" it simply meant someone not doing it as the day job, for a wage (like a Marine Operator), it didn't inherently mean the opposite level of skill to "professional" (which meant "paid"). Now the word "Amateur" has connotations of ineptitude and people "simply" amusing themselves.

Our man in Havana

I remember the IRTS saying before that there is only a limited number of questions for the exams and they would not make past papers available.

watty

Yes. Which is inept.

brownmini

Our man in Havana wrote: »

I remember the IRTS saying before that there is only a limited number of questions for the exams and they would not make past papers available.

That shouldnt stop people discussing the actual question (on here).

Our man in Havana

brownmini wrote: »

That shouldnt stop people discussing the actual question (on here).

Not at all. There is no problem discussing the questions here. The IRTS have no influence here.

eth0

Would they read this thread and if a question was discussed in-depth would they decide not to reuse that question in a later year?

I did see 1 or 2 questions cant remember what they were but i think the exact same as on the sample paper

brownmini

Our man in Havana wrote: »

I remember the IRTS saying before that there is only a limited number of questions for the exams and they would not make past papers available.

Non-availability of question papers is fine. Many colleges won't allow you to
bring out the exam paper - but they'll sell it to you later on as a 'past
paper'

I'm not suggesting that someone smuggle an exam paper out of the room at all either.

But people have memories and could if they wanted to hold a discussion
about various questions on an exam that they did.

They need not publish the given answers or even the exact word for word
question but it would be very helpful for those preparing to do the exam if
they had more than one sample paper to practice on and at the same time
read the reaction and discussion about each question to understand the
whole aspect of the question itself [I think].

73