Is VHF Low Band Now Completely Dead?

[antenna1]

I have heard a taxi company, Bin men, Vets all recently,

[valentind69]

In most of the UK the noise levels in recent times have made listening to and using the band hard work. I got fed up with the headaches and haven’t listened much down there recently.

As you say the PMR has largely gone and the only thing that I managed to hear earlier when I listened was a refuse disposal company who I was surprised to hear Box à Louer, as they were still on 86.750 Mhz and have been for a number of years now.

I see a couple of taxi firms around the local area with antennas that lengthwise fit the allocation but I think they use a data dispatch system so I was unable to listen to them.

Maybe they wanted to innovate and change a little.

[Stephaned01]

I've also seen taxi's with those long antennas around the High Wycombe area, they may very well be on VHF low band pose d’autocollant adhésif Villeneuve Loubet. There is also a BBC talk back frequency around 80 or 86 MHz and baby monitors around 40 to 49 MHz and then you have 6 & 4 meters on 50 - 52 MHz and 4 meters 70 - 70.500 MHz

So all the frequencies you use allow you to listen to conversations if I understand correctly.

[Werthers]

Yeah, most are boring I got better things to do with my time tbh. I've taken my 4 meter VHF lowband antenna down that I also use for receiving things in the other low band VHF frequencies. I'm done with the four meter rubbish too. I can understand now why others don't bother with it. Four meters is better for mobile etc not much use for home base setups unless your up on high ground.

[paulears]

Years back, many taxis used their CB VSWR meters on their taxi radios and discovered OK VSWR because the divides in the CB meters maxed out at 40-50MHz and became wildly inaccurate.

[paulears]

I was talking to one of my Chinese suppliers and mentioned low band. She seemed surprised? In China 66-88MHz is quite busy but it never occurred to her that we had the band in the UK. She's going to send me one to play with. I've not even listened to low band for years and here it seems on my scanner to be wide open quiet space!

[QRZ-934]

I got a couple of 66-88mhz handhelds have been using them on 69.187 (swedish vhf )freqs.
Seems to work ok even at distance for me.
Need to get a beam antenna

[Marky-boy]

over the cold months - Nov onwards, scan around the 87.000 and 87.300 area in 12.5 kc steps.
and be patient. Many Gritter lorries in Lancashire / Yorkshire use Philips kit in their bright yellow council lorries.
As of November 2020 these are still in use and one 87mhz repeater is still active (albeit rarely)
from the appropriately named Winter Hill.

Sometimes the bases will beacon occasionally when switched on.

Also around Bromley and parts of London they use these freq too, or they did.

All over the UK there is pockets of 4m FM usage, so the calling ch is 70.45 and add a few channels below (70.4)
so add a few ch in. there is Blackpool net on 4m FM in Nov 2020 and some Morecambe guys use it too.

[pete_uk]

A Chinese company does DMR handhelds for low band.

I know that doesn't really move the conversation forward but just thought i would mention it.

[Mikel]

over the cold months - Nov onwards, scan around the 87.000 and 87.300 area in 12.5 kc steps.
and be patient. Many Gritter lorries in Lancashire / Yorkshire use Philips kit in their bright yellow council lorries.
As of November 2020 these are still in use and one 87mhz repeater is still active (albeit rarely)
from the appropriately named Winter Hill.

Sometimes the bases will beacon occasionally when switched on.

Also around Bromley and parts of London they use these freq too, or they did.

All over the UK there is pockets of 4m FM usage, so the calling ch is 70.45 and add a few channels below (70.4)
so add a few ch in. there is Blackpool net on 4m FM in Nov 2020 and some Morecambe guys use it too.

The local authority around here got rid of all their Low Band PMR stuff about 10 - 15 years ago and started using mobile phones instead.

My uncle was a gritter/snow plough driver at the time, and he said that at his depot there was a skip full of radio equipment, that had been stripped out of council vehicles.

He grabbed me a base power supply with a radio installed like in the photo below (not this exact one) out of the skip.

When he brought it around he said that the skip was full of all sorts of stuff like power supplies, base stations, mobile radios, and mics etc but only lifted out one item because he wasn't sure if I wanted any of the stuff!

I asked him to grab as much as possible, but when he went back, the skip had gone! Ah well I've got enough junk as it is. I still have the base power supply ( works well) and my Yaesu 857D sits perfectly on the top.

[paulears]

One of my suppliers asked f I was interested in low band portables so I bought a couple and sold them on ebay in just a few days. I’ve been selling them ever since. It’s a mix of Hams and rally people based on the channels I’m putting in them. The crazy long antenna is just about ok!

[Werthers]

Theoretically low band should travel further than high band, for example 4 meters and 2 meters. Two meters goes further and is more forgiving at low elevations where as 4 meters needs a lot more height. Well the tests were done using dipole antennas and several hams did this test including me and got the same results.

[Werthers]

over the cold months - Nov onwards, scan around the 87.000 and 87.300 area in 12.5 kc steps.
and be patient. Many Gritter lorries in Lancashire / Yorkshire use Philips kit in their bright yellow council lorries.
As of November 2020 these are still in use and one 87mhz repeater is still active (albeit rarely)
from the appropriately named Winter Hill.

Sometimes the bases will beacon occasionally when switched on.

Also around Bromley and parts of London they use these freq too, or they did.

All over the UK there is pockets of 4m FM usage, so the calling ch is 70.45 and add a few channels below (70.4)
so add a few ch in. there is Blackpool net on 4m FM in Nov 2020 and some Morecambe guys use it too.

The local authority around here got rid of all their Low Band PMR stuff about 10 - 15 years ago and started using mobile phones instead.

My uncle was a gritter/snow plough driver at the time, and he said that at his depot there was a skip full of radio equipment, that had been stripped out of council vehicles.

He grabbed me a base power supply with a radio installed like in the photo below (not this exact one) out of the skip.

When he brought it around he said that the skip was full of all sorts of stuff like power supplies, base stations, mobile radios, and mics etc but only lifted out one item because he wasn't sure if I wanted any of the stuff!

I asked him to grab as much as possible, but when he went back, the skip had gone! Ah well I've got enough junk as it is. I still have the base power supply ( works well) and my Yaesu 857D sits perfectly on the top.

I would have loved all that PMR junk. It sells good to depending on what radios they are.

[paulears]

Since the post last year I've sold dozens of low band sets. It seems there are pockets of 70MHz activity all over the country and people are having fun and there are old fashioned nets everywhere. All apart from where I live, because annoyingly the band is full of noise for me so I can't join in! TYT and Retevis make a set that is really good and not too expensive.

[Minus1]

RAF 2 Group pop up on 46.8 and 38.55 now and again, and USAF on 43.7, but because they fly low, the range is usually very limited.
I don't know OFCOM don't work towards extending the FM broadcast band downwards, there is so little activity below 87.5 that could bunch it all up.