40 Meters: Full Details

One of the five original shortwave bands allocated to amateurs in 1926, 40 Meters is considered the most reliable all-season DX band. Most useful for inter-continental communication at night and extremely useful for local contacts out to a range of 1000+ miles, depending on conditions.

For many years the portion of the band from 7100-7300 kilohertz has been allocated to shortwave broadcasters outside the Americas and not available to radio amateurs outside ITU Region 2. At the World Radio Conference WRC-03 in 2003 it was agreed that the broadcast stations would move out of the section 7100-7200 Khz on 29 March 2009 and that portion would become a worldwide exclusive amateur allocation afterwards. Discussions on releasing the remaining 100 kHz of the band to amateurs at a later date will continue in future conferences. Several European countries have now allowed amateur communication in the 7100-7200 kilohertz section on a shared non-interference basis as an initial act.