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Amateur radio Project‑class

This page is within the scope of WikiProject Amateur radio, which collaborates on articles related to amateur radio technology, organizations, and activities. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.Amateur radioWikipedia:WikiProject Amateur radioTemplate:WikiProject Amateur radioamateur radio Project This page does not require a rating on Misplaced Pages's content assessment scale. To-do list: Improve to GA-Class: Amateur radio Coaxial cable FT8 Morse code Radioteletype Expand and improve: 20 meters Amateur radio international operation Amateur radio net Amateur radio operating award Amateur radio repeater American Radio Relay League Baofeng UV-5R DX Century Club Field Day (amateur radio) International Amateur Radio Union International Lighthouse and Lightship Weekend Japan Amateur Radio League Hy-Gain Radcom Replexer Salvation Army Team Emergency Radio Network Shuttle Amateur Radio Experiment Simulated Emergency Test Skywarn South African Radio League Tucson Amateur Packet Radio VHF/UHF Century Club War Emergency Radio Service Winlink Wireless Institute of Australia Worked All Zones Yaesu (brand) Associazione Radioamatori Italiani Federacion Mexicana de Radio Experimentadores Gin pole Ham radio (magazine) - published in the USA from 1968 to 1990 Deutscher Amateur Radio Club Liga Brasileira de Radioamadores Radio Amateur Society of Thailand Radio Club Argentino Soyuz Radiolyubitelei Rossii (Russian Amateur Radio Union) Suomen Radioamatooriliitto (Finnish Amateur Radio League) The Canadian Amateur - member journal of the Radio Amateurs of Canada Union de Radioaficionados Espanoles Union Francaise des Radioamateurs YASME Foundation Create: Amateur Radio (magazine) - member journal of the Wireless Institute of Australia Amateur Radio Research and Development Corporation (AMRAD) of Washington, DC – Development of Packet Radio Ameritron Break In (magazine) - member journal of the New Zealand Association of Radio Transmitters FlexRadio Systems - SDR maker HAMNET - South African amateur radio emergency communications organization HB9CV - Famous DF VHF antenna DX cluster - Used to exist, but was deleted Ionoscatter - de:Ionoscatter, similar to troposcatter, but on ionosphere, not troposphere Les Hamilton GM3ITN Scotland (Falklands war) Doug Lockhart VE7APU (developed the Terminal node controller) Mirage (manufacturer) Radio propagation software Sako Hasegawa - JA1MP, founder of Yaesu Musen Tokuzo Inoue - JA3FA, founder of Icom Incorporated Tony Pole-Evans (Falklands War) Transequatorial propagation - see TV-FM DX for a starting point Tropospheric ducting - worth splitting from TV-FM DX into its own article Vectronics Wireless Institute Civil Emergency Network (Australia) Beaches On The Air awards program U.S. Islands Awards Program awards program

Archives

Archive 1 (Aug 2006 - )

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Suggest systematic move of band articles

Hi, outsider here. I happened across the 2 meters and 40 meters articles from another discussion. I wonder, what would you all think about moving them to 2 meter band and 40 meter band, etc? The problem with 2 meters is that it sounds like an article about a distance, or about two devices meant to measure something. Also singular nouns or singular noun phrases are generally the preferred form for article titles. Anyway, maybe it's been discussed before and rejected; don't know, haven't checked. Just thought I'd throw in my 2c and see what people think. --Trovatore (talk) 20:31, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

And the situation is made even worse with the US and elsewhere spellings. 60 meters is about our amateur band and 60 metres is about the athletic race. This has caused a lot of problems in the past. Not sure if your proposal of adding 'band' is the best, maybe something on the lines of '40 meters (amateur)'. Of course living in the UK they should all be spelt 'metres', a meter is what is on your rig to tell you the current.... Dsergeant (talk) 07:28, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't see anything wrong with WP:ENGVAR here -- if the articles were first written in American they should stay in American, including their titles. But in my opinion the two you mention should be at 60 meter band and 60 metre footrace, respectively, or something along those lines. There's nothing wrong with one article using meter and another using metre, but to disambiguate between completely different topics on that basis is close to bizarre.

(By the way athletics is another problematic term—in the States it means competitive physical sport in general. I think what you call "athletics" is what we call "track and field".) --Trovatore (talk) 08:11, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

I think the band articles should be named "# meter amateur radio band". That would make them properly unambigious. (I am indifferent to the variety of english) Roger (talk) 10:57, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't see any ambiguity issue with "x meter band" alone, and would prefer that form with the addition of "(amateur radio)" should a more verbose form prove to be the consensus. However, as a preceding compound adjective with the word "meter" spelled out, "x-meter" should be hyphenated—see the last bullet in the list at WP:HYPHEN for the MoS guideline. Thus, for example, 10-meter band would be my preference. /Ninly (talk) 18:00, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

That sounds great to me. --Trovatore (talk) 20:18, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

I also agree with Ninly's suggestion. However, based on my experience in other projects, we should get as wide a consensus in the project as possible before implementing; otherwise, people may start moving articles to their own pet formats. (The US state-highway articles got ugly for a while...) —C.Fred (talk) 22:30, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I have heard that people might refer, for example, to a "2-meter commercial band", as opposed to amateur. But I think that my recommendation is still fine, with the possible addition of "(amateur radio)" to article titles only in cases where it becomes necessary. /Ninly (talk) 21:24, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

OK, I'm (almost) completely ignorant of this stuff, but how would a 2-meter commercial band be different from a 2-meter amateur band? Radio waves two meters long are the same whether you're getting paid for them or not, no? --Trovatore (talk) 22:08, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

In those cases, the 2-meter band article probably needs to be an article on the general band, including that frequency range A is dedicated to amateur use and B to commercial use, with links to the 2-meter amateur band or 2-meter band (amateur) article to provide specifics. —C.Fred (talk) 22:34, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

That seems reasonable to me, although it may interfere with the parallel presentation of amateur bands in article leads. Just something to think about. The issue (to address Trovatore's question) is more with how the bands are allocated legally. An amateur talking about the "2-meter band" would be talking about a completely different range of frequencies than someone referring to the commercial band of the same name. Bandwidth-based names are approximate and largely used for convenience, since only one specific frequency will have that exact bandwidth (150 MHz in this case—not even in the amateur band!). Similarly, many people (at least in my area) refer to the 70 cm band as "440" even though the allocation properly stretches all the way from 420 to 450 MHz. I'm not familiar with the commercial allocations, but unless someone steps in and wants to start that article, I'd guess it can be relegated to a subsection of the amateur-band article, and mentioned in passing in the lead. /Ninly (talk) 22:49, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

There are a few amateur bands that overlap or are shared with commercial users (2m is not one of them). One example is the 80m band in the Europe/Africa zone. Similarly the upper end of the 40m band overlaps with broadcasters in some countries, however the broadcast band is usually called 41m. In the VHF/UHF section only the amateur bands are named after their (nominal) wavelength - nobody calls the FM radio broadcast band "3m" or the civil aviation band "2.5m". BTW, do the rules require the word meter/metre to be written out in full in the page title? Simply using "#m" would help to avoid ENGVAR wars. Roger (talk) 11:33, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Thank you! Good info. Having done some SWLing, I'd seen the broadcast bands referred to that way (41 m, etc.), but didn't know the usage in the non-amateur VHF/UHF range. The pertinent article-naming convention (at WP:NAME) reads: "Prefer spelled-out phrases to abbreviations ... Avoid the use of abbreviations, including acronyms, in page naming unless the term you are naming is almost exclusively known only by its abbreviation and is widely known and used in that form." I'd say that applies to meter vs m. Following the WP:ENGVAR guidelines (and being American myself), I prefer retaining the existing variety, but I have no interest in conflict over superficial differences, either. /Ninly (talk) 15:41, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Here's a more formalized proposal, based on the discussion above: Move all articles referring to specific amateur radio frequency bands from "x meters" or "x centimeters" to "x-meter band" or "x-centimeter band". This would involve:

1. Moving these articles: 160 meters, 80 meters, 60 meters, 40 meters, 20 meters, 15 meters, 10 meters, 6 meters, 4 meters, 2 meters, 1.25 meters, 70 centimeters, 33 centimeters, 23 centimeters, 13 centimeters
2. Placing redirects on the current article names, and adding disambiguation links where appropriate (the 60-meter band vs. footrace being the only currently identified case, since 60 meters will redirect to 60-meter band—60 metres should also probably be moved to something like 60-metre footrace, but that lies outside of our scope here)
3. Adding redirects from 12-meter band, 17-meter band, and 30-meter band to WARC bands
4. Keeping an eye on possible ambiguities, with the possible addition of " (amateur radio)" to article titles, should they arise.

With general approval, I will be happy to do the footwork, but please comment and elaborate on the requirements if necessary; I haven't done anything quite this structurally extensive before. /Ninly (talk) 16:16, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm not a member of this project, but I came here for the sole reason of asking if this should be done. It's already being discussed! Please do it. --Elliskev 15:04, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

I fully support this proposal. Roger (talk) 19:00, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, both. Last chance for dissent! Otherwise I'll go for it sometime tomorrow or, at the latest, Monday morning. /Ninly (talk) 21:05, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure if there is a policy about it but I think three days to poll interested parties may be a bit too short. I think this should be left open for at least a week. Roger (talk) 09:55, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

On your list of affected pages above, please also include 600 meter band which currently redirects to 500 KHz - that page covers all former users of 500kHz but now with several countries (including the US and UK) having experimental access it may soon deserve its own page! 600 metres is about the athletics race.... Dsergeant (talk) 16:52, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, Roger, I'll wait a little longer; didn't know whether there was a standard wait time and hadn't heard much here, but I'm happy to wait a bit longer. And thanks, Dsergeant, for the reminder of 500kc—I'll definitely incorporate that (as 600-meter band) into the project. If there are there any other rogue (microwave?) band articles out there, let me know. Come to think of it, I will also add redirects from the hyphenless versions of the target article titles. /Ninly (talk) 21:51, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

I have done it, except:

• 4-metre band retained its British spelling—I didn't think consistency would do when that band is UK-only.
• I didn't touch the 500 kc/600-meter stuff yet, because the article currently focuses on the historic use of the frequency (500 kHz, a wavelength 600 meters), rather than an allocated frequency band. It'd be great if some of this experimental work leads to more formal allocations, but as yet the experimental group is only briefly mentioned in the 500 kHz article, so I decided to hold off on changing it, at least until it was discussed more.

Please let me know if you see anything I missed. /Ninly (talk) 17:06, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Well done! Minor nitpick: The 4m band is not UK only - it is also used in at least South Africa, Italy and I suspect a number of other countries in Region 1 - but it doesn't really matter as UK spelling is apropriate anyway. Roger (talk) 20:30, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

You are right, of course; I mainly just noted that changing to the American spelling would be inconsistent with the article's contents, which I would guess are maintained mostly by people who prefer the British spellings. No need to go there! /Ninly (talk) 18:28, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Coordinators' working group

Hi! I'd like to draw your attention to the new WikiProject coordinators' working group, an effort to bring both official and unofficial WikiProject coordinators together so that the projects can more easily develop consensus and collaborate. This group has been created after discussion regarding possible changes to the A-Class review system, and that may be one of the first things discussed by interested coordinators.

All designated project coordinators are invited to join this working group. If your project hasn't formally designated any editors as coordinators, but you are someone who regularly deals with coordination tasks in the project, please feel free to join as well. — Delievered by §hepBot (Disable) on behalf of the WikiProject coordinators' working group at 04:42, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

WP:NOT#PLOT: There is an RfC discussing if our policy on plot, WP:PLOT, should be removed from what Misplaced Pages is not. Please feel free to comment on the discussion and straw poll.

• Project-Class amateur radio pages
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