200 Meters and Down... why we have the ham bands we have.

There is a publication from the ARRL called 200 Meters and Down which explains why we have the hams bands that we have. Actually, it was a form of punishment at the hand of the US Navy.

In the early days of wireless operation, the focus was contacting ships at sea and thus the US Navy staked a claim of controlling all things radio. The transmitters of those days were not SDR (Answer to question #19 on the 45 Minute Extra License exam) but spark gap transmitters. Given the technology at the time most radio transmissions were in the Long Wave bands. (Below the AM broadcast band, see question #27.) 

Well hams being hams often they would drift into the Naval Frequencies and that "pissed off" the Navy. So, the Navy came up with a punishment... Hams could have radio transmitters but could only operate 200 Meters and Down. For those who don't know you divide 300 by 200 and get 1.5 MHz which is the low end and say it was 160M then that is 1.875 MHz. The US Navy in essence said... there work with that. It was a gift. You ask why the 300, that is a constant of the speed of light in meters that lets you convert meters to frequency.

In 1923 Fred Schnell, 1MO/John Reinartz, 1XAL and Leon DeLoy, 8AB ran the famous trans-Atlantic tests where they made contact between the US and Europe on 80M CW. In essence the hams of old paved the way for HF communications. It was the hams that taught the US Navy how to make long distant contacts using frequencies 200M and down. What a payback.

Along the way let us not forget Chiquita Banana and the United Fruit Company. This company did a great deal of radio development in connection with their radio network used to contact banana boats plodding the path between South America and New Orleans. 

Thus, the why of the ham bands as originally established below 200 Meters. BTW it was the US Navy who still controlled all things radio that in 1919 caused the formation of RCA to build shipboard radio equipment. The Navy saw us as vulnerable because until that time that sort of gear was built by the Eyetalians (Marconi) and the Germans (Telefunken). The US Navy engaged the following companies to form RCA: Westinghouse, General Electric and United Fruit. General Electric was for a long time the major stockholder of RCA. And as they say the rest is history.

Big Transmitter. That will cause a lot of QRM.

Them that know, now don't care if you know.

73's

Pete N6QW