Your Bands, Your Power, Your Emissions

Your licence is a permission to radiate on named frequencies, at a named power, in named modes. Step outside any of the three and you are operating unlawfully, even if the other two are perfect. This lesson is the table itself, the arithmetic behind the power figure, and what the status column actually obliges you to do — and then, because it matters more here than anywhere else in the course, the figures that have changed and are commonly misremembered.

Where the table actually comes from

Under the 1978 Rules the answer was easy: rule 13 authorised frequency bands, power and classes of emission, and the table itself sat in Annexure V.

The 2024 Rules do something different, and it is worth understanding. They contain no frequency table at all. Rule 7(1) instead provides that the frequency bands, the power and the classes of emission for each grade shall be such as the Central Government specifies. The table was lifted out of the rules and left to administrative order, which is a sensible way to keep it current but does mean that “the band table” is no longer something you can point to inside a single statutory instrument.

The operative table is therefore WPC’s, traceable to office memorandum L-14011/255/2004-AMT dated 13 August 2010, corroborated by the National Institute of Amateur Radio and consistent with the National Frequency Allocation Plan 2022. That is the table below, and it is the one to answer from.

The table, by grade

Switch the control below between Restricted and General and watch what changes. It is worth doing rather than reading: seeing the 5.7 GHz row vanish, the HF power fall from 400 W to 50 W and the HF emission list shrink to four voice modes makes “50 watts on HF, 10 watts above it, no CW on HF” something you have watched happen rather than a line you have memorised.

Two structural points to carry away from it. First, the power ceiling follows the band as well as the grade: a VU3 has 50 W on every HF band and 10 W on 6 m, 2 m and 70 cm; a VU2 has 400 W on HF and 25 W above it. The HF figure does not carry over to two metres. Second, 5725–5840 MHz is General grade only — a Restricted licensee has no allocation there at all.

Power means DC input, not RF output

This is the classic Indian examination point and it catches people who know radio well from elsewhere. Every power figure in the table is the DC power input to the final radio-frequency stage of the transmitter — what the power supply delivers into the last amplifier — and not the RF power leaving the aerial socket.

Worked example 1

A transceiver runs from a 13.8 V supply and its final stage draws 3.6 A on transmit. The DC input is

P = V × I = 13.8 × 3.6 = 49.7 W

— about 50 W, which is exactly the Restricted limit on HF. Sail any closer and you are relying on the accuracy of your meters.

Worked example 2

The final stage draws 3 A at 12 V while you work 14 MHz.

P = 12 × 3 = 36 W, comfortably inside 50 W.

Now turn it round. If that 50 W input stage is 60 per cent efficient, the RF leaving it is 0.6 × 50 = 30 W. So a lawful 50 W Indian HF station shows appreciably less than 50 W on a wattmeter in the feeder — and, conversely, a rig whose brochure claims “50 W output” is drawing considerably more than 50 W of DC input and is over the limit. Quoting the brochure does not answer the question.

Which emissions you may use

A Restricted licensee’s HF emissions are A3E, H3E, J3E and R3E: double-sideband AM and the three single-sideband variants — full carrier, suppressed carrier and reduced carrier. Every one of them is telephony. Read that list carefully and notice what is missing: A1A, Morse telegraphy, is not there. A VU3 has no CW on HF, which fits neatly with there being no Morse test in the Restricted examination.

Above 30 MHz the list changes character entirely. On 6 m, 2 m and 70 cm a Restricted licensee has F1B, F2B, F3E and F3C — the frequency-modulation family: F1B and F2B for data, F3E for FM voice, F3C for facsimile. That is why a VU3’s two metre handheld is an FM set, and why the HF list of A3E, H3E, J3E and R3E does not carry upward.

A General licensee gains the telegraphy and image modes on HF: A1A and A2A for Morse, A3C and A3F for facsimile and television, plus the FM family, on top of the four voice modes the Restricted grade already has. If the designators themselves are not yet second nature, work through Reading an Emission Designator.

Primary, secondary, and non-interference non-protection

The status column is not decoration. It tells you who else is in the band and what your obligations are towards them.

The practical difference is what you do when somebody else turns up. On a primary band you have standing to ask them to move. On a secondary or non-protected band you have none — you are the guest, and the obligation to stop causing interference is yours alone.

Satellites, repeaters and the mast

The amateur-satellite service is authorised to the General grade only, in the appropriate sub-bands, with a maximum of 30 dBW e.i.r.p. A Restricted licensee may listen to satellite downlinks as much as he likes — receiving is not transmitting — but may not uplink. That is one of the concrete reasons to upgrade from VU3 to VU2.

On two metres, the standard Indian repeater shift is 600 kHz. A repeater receives on one frequency and simultaneously retransmits on another, so the two must be far enough apart for the duplexer to keep the transmitter out of its own receiver; 600 kHz is the figure India uses, and it is the number the paper asks for. Five megahertz is a common 70 cm shift elsewhere and is not the Indian VHF answer. The repeaters actually on the air are listed at the repeater directory.

Two things constrain where you may put the aerial. Authorisation of a station at a particular site is subject to SACFA clearance — the Standing Advisory Committee on Radio Frequency Allocation looks at the site and the structure. Separately, the height of the aerial must stay within the limits laid down by the Director General of Civil Aviation, so that it does not endanger aircraft; where the DGCA requires it, obstruction lighting and painting of the tower must be installed and maintained at your expense. And from Annexure I, the aerial must in any case be placed so that it cannot cross above, or fall on to, a power, telegraph or telephone line.

Four figures worth checking against a current table

Band edges move, and a table outlives the allocation it was drawn from. Four figures in particular are commonly misremembered: three because the allocation itself has changed since the figure was first written down, and one because a much-reproduced line carries a typographical slip. They are not opinions or edge cases; they are numbers, and a candidate who learns the superseded ones will answer a question incorrectly. Check yours against a current table.

160 metres. India’s allocation is 1800–1825 kHz — twenty-five kilohertz, narrow by world standards, held on a primary basis and open to both grades. The much-quoted “1820–1860 kHz” is a different range entirely: it starts above the real band and runs well past its top.

6 metres. The Indian band is 50–52 MHz, on a secondary basis. The 50–54 MHz figure is the American allocation, copied across. Working 53 MHz on the strength of it would be out of band.

30 metres. 10100–10150 kHz exists and is missing from many tables completely, so it is easy to believe India has no such band. It is shared with the fixed service, held on a non-interference non-protection basis, and by long international convention carries no voice traffic — CW and narrow data only, which for a Restricted licensee means it is a band to listen on rather than work.

40 metres. A much-reproduced line prints 7000–7100 kHz for the General grade while giving 7000–7200 kHz for Restricted in the row above. That is a typographical error — nothing in Indian practice gives the higher grade the narrower band. Both grades have 7000–7200 kHz. Note also that 7000–7300 kHz is the Region 2 allocation used in the Americas and does not apply here.