RadioBanter - AM Or USB For 3.023 MHz ?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bob[_27_] (Post 796746)

Hi,

I saw the Aero. freq. 3.023 MHz listed in MT.

Would this likely be AM or USB ?

Thanks,
Bob

Hi Bob,
3.023 Mhz is beyond the amateur radio band.
Although SSB is more efficient, not all broadcasters use it.
I would venture to say that it would be lower side band because you would want it to travel as far as possible.

To really be able to pick it up though, you would need a dipole antenna for 80 meters and you would need it at least 100' off the ground.

Although you might think that even just a set top box - Short Wave Listening receiver should be able to pick it up, even just with a short wire antenna - say 20 - 30' long.
You have to remember, during the day, 80 meters is real noisy and at night it isn't usually much better for DX.

If aircraft was to use this frequency - it would probably be for emergencies, since there are better forms of communications available to them - such as digital modes and sattelites.

80 meters works well during late afternoon / evening for short distance communications, because the radio waves are so long, that they act like ground following HF radio waves...

40 meters is more line of sight.
If you try to have a general coverage net, say of western Pennsylvania, there will always be people who cannot hear each other, just because there is mountains between the transmit and the receive antennas - so not everyone would be able to hear each other.

160 meters - 1.8 MHz requires a lot more antenna, and doesn't work well during daylight hours and is more susceptable to noise - since the level of noise is inverse to frequency...

You would want to probably aim your antenna in the direction of a short path heading between the USA and Europe - NORTH, if you were in either place, since that is the way the airplanes fly anyways.

I highly doubt if it would be used much in the continental USA because there are other modes of communications available - towers in every state with more efficient antenna's, and VHF is the more prefered mode of communications over HF....

The automated tower at my location uses 123.0 MHz, and a series of microphone clicks to turn on the runway lights and beacon.
Most manned towers uses a frequency between 116 and 128 MHz for communications...