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Coming Soon: 146.52 MHz in ARRL VHF Contests
26 July 2015 | by 
I’ve been known to whine complain comment about the prohibition against using 146.52 MHz during ARRL radio contests. For example, see The One Frequency You Should Never Use on Field Day and Mt Herman: SOTA plus VHF Contest.
During my presentation on Mountaintop VHF for SOTA at the Central States VHF Society Conference in Denver today, I mentioned this is an issue. Basically, I pointed out that Summits On The Air (SOTA) operators often default to the 2m fm calling frequency, which is prohibited for use in the ARRL contests. This gets in the way when mountaintop stations do a combination SOTA and VHF Contest operation.
During my presentation, Brian Mileshosky N5ZGT, ARRL Director of the Rocky Mountain Division, reported that the ARRL has decided to remove the prohibition of 146.52 MHz in VHF contests. It will take some time for this to work its way into the actual rules, so stayed tuned for further developments.
This is great news…a cleanup of an unnecessary impediment to VHF contesting. Now, will the CQ Worldwide VHF Contest do the same?
73, Bob K0NR
The post Coming Soon: 146.52 MHz in ARRL VHF Contests appeared first on The KØNR Radio Site.
8 Responses to “Coming Soon: 146.52 MHz in ARRL VHF Contests”
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This is the worst ruling ever. Typical of the ARRL above 10 meters. 146.520 should stay as a calling frequency. So it’s ok if I run my 52 verticle elements and my 1000 watts and dominate the frequency for 100’s of miles and nobody will be able to make a contact/call without them hearing me??? This may get interesting when many get ticked off.
N8WAC
Tony Everhardt
Agreed Tony.
Another contest? And for 146.52?
THIS is a crazy idea.
Agreed, this ruling is bad. Parking on a calling frequency and dominating it for contest purposes defeats the reason for having a calling frequency in the first place. Imagine needing the calling frequency and finding it occupied for hours on end by some nincompoop sitting atop a mountain with huge coverage area.
And another thing, 146.52 might officially be called the “simplex” frequency, but most know and accept that in practice it is really the 2m simplex calling frequency. This was adopted over time because many fealt 146.200 was too far away for optimal antenna performance (which is an arguable point).
Hello, I too agree that any calling frequency should not be occupied during contests. To do so defeats the purpose of having a calling frequency in the first place!
another asinine idea from the ARRL
My concern would be impact to the Wilderness Protocol.
http://www.mcminnarc.com/wilderness.html
I would hate to think someone in serious need of assistance could be squashed by contesters. On the flip-side, perhaps the increase in listeners during a contest might get that person heard where they may not have been – as long as others in range would be aware enough to halt their contesting operating to allow the emergency communication to happen. Would it be that hard for the ARRL to mandate 146.55 instead?
Chris your statement is the reason why this ruling is a bad choice. I’m here at my qth. There just happens to be somebody 45 miles on an ht trying to make a call for directions, emergency or just a regular call. But nobody can hear him because I am using my 52 element 21 db antenna and my 1000 watts. All they hear is me. That’s why .520 should stay as a calling freq. For the life of me I can not understand why it’s so important for some to keep pushing to open up the calling freq. It’s only 1 freq when there are many simplex frequencies. After all if the simplex freq’s get crowded one can use the output of repeaters. But yet there’s only 1 calling freq. It’s unbelievable why many are so anal to change this.