Will amateur radio operators in the U.S. get to use the newest frequency band allocated, which is the 600-meter band, also known as the 630 meters? This is a new arena for hams, being in that the band is in the Medium Frequency (MF) region. So how do I make the 600 meter dipole? Ham operators can listen until permission to transmit is allocated to the ham community.

This is a new one but let’s stick to the basics. Our range of transmit is from 472 to 479 kHz. If we pull up the Frequency Wavelength Calculator and punch in our frequency, somewhere in the middle of our scope (475 kHz), we get 517.8947368421052. Round that off and we get around 518 feet (158 meter length).

So 518 feet is a quarter wave, one half of a dipole. A half wave dipole would total up to twice that, being 1036 feet. Wow, that’s some wire to roll out!

The 600-meter band is available on a secondary basis and watts to use is 1 watt, and under some circumstances 5 watts may be use, sharing it with primary users.

600-Meter Band — 472 to 479 kHz

Quarter Wave:  518 feet
Half Wave: 1036 feet
Full Wave: 2072 feet