...it seems that there is alot of interesting stuff going on here """Unlicensed stuff is usually wide FM. This would be cordless phones, drive through intercoms, baby monitors, wireless mics, etc.""" you said that wide fm is 54 to 100MHz right?
Wide FM (as a mode of transmission) is used many places, some of which would fall between 54 and 108MHz for the aural carriers of TV stations and FM broadcast stations. There are also some professional wireless mics which share spectrum with TV stations on unused channels in a particular area. The sentence you quoted me on about cordless phones, drive thru coms, etc, being wide FM was in reference to their use in the 900MHz band. These services are often narrow FM in the 46-49MHz band. While the old 49MHz 25 channel cordless phones aren't sold (or at least very rarely sold) anymore, there's still some around. I still hear many baby monitors around 49.86. Kids walkie talkies used to run 49.86 AM (not narrow FM) but FRS radios rule the streets these days. The difference between N-FM and W-FM as the names would suggest is the bandwidth of the signal. Ham radios use narrow FM to transmit so communicating with a wide FM device won't work well. A N-FM signal on a W-FM receiver will sound very quiet. A W-FM signal on a N-FM receiver will sound very loud and distorted. Many ham radios will receive WFM but will not transmit it.
ive heard that allot of wireless mics etc. are around 100-180 and 400-480mhz, are they here too?
Yes, there's some lower end wireless mic activity around 160-170. As mentioned before, some professional wireless mics share spectrum with TV channels that aren't used in the area. Most of these are UHF frequencies.
Right now the Kenwood F6A is my 1# choice because it has a very nice range, """Also, the F6A receives SSB which in my book is a big plus"""" I tried to wikipedia SSB but it didnt clear much up for me, could you explain this?
SSB = Single Side Band. It's very common from 1.8 - 29.5MHz in the ham bands, CB (in both channels 1-40 but quite often in the illegal "freeband") some shortwave broadcast, transoceanic aircraft and ships with some telephone calls on occaision. SSB is a type of AM (Amplitude Modulation) with the difference being that in SSB the carrier is removed along with one of the side bands (hence the name SINGLE side band) and regenerated at the receiving end. This results in a signal that occupies less bandwidth than AM, uses less power and travels further given the same amount of power since the power isn't spread over as wide of bandwidth. SSB isn't common at all at VHF in UHF frequencies except in extreme cases of EME (hams bouncing signals off the moon), ham long distance weak signal work and ham satellites. I believe old troposcatter phone systems used in extremely isolated areas may have used it too. Oh, and all SSB receivers can receive CW (morse code). There are many data modes which use FSK (frequency shift keying) that an SSB receiver can receive. Then you'd hook the radio up to a TNC or a computer soundcard with proper software to decode. Note that the antenna that the F6A comes with will do little for most of those things. EME, weak signal, satellite all require an antenna with good gain away from obstructions (read outdoors and big). The antennas that come with these radios generally have a loss of close to 3dB under isotropic. This is because the antenna is shorter than a resonant fraction of the wavelength of the frequency it operates on. The electrical length falls within those stipulation but the short physical length doesn't exhibit gain. Worse yet, the antenna isn't built to be resonant on HF frequencies so it's a real poor performer there. In other words, the antenna it comes with is just too short to be effective the lower in frequency you go.
Any idea how far the Kenwood F6A would transmit with the standard antenna i know it has 5watts on all bands but i have no idea what relation that gives me to transmit distance.
This is a difficult question to answer because it depends heavily on your environment, like terrain and obstructions between sender and receiver, what equipment the other end has, etc. You could hit a repeater 50 miles away since many are on top of tall antenna towers in good locations with good antennas. If you're trying to get to another handheld radio, you might only get a mile or two. If you're trying to get into something like a cordless phone that's continuously transmitting then your signal is going to have to have a higher field strength at the receiver than the phone presents. You can calculate this out with given output power of the handset, how far they are from the base, how far you are from their base and how much power you're transmitting. Distance that will work is really all over the place because of all the variables but I'll tell you with the low power output of an HT you'd have to be pretty darn close and them pretty darn far from the base.
I really want to rx and tx cordless phones but only the real old ones operate around 49mhz right? I was in staples the other day and took a look at the cordless phones section and everything for sale uses above 1.3ghz, are there any other more reachable common frequencies?
Yes, 46-49MHz phones are growing quite rare these days. With Wal-Mart selling $10 cordless phones, most people tend to get a new phone rather than paying $10 or more to replace their dead battery in their old cordless. 40 channel 900MHz phones were the next ones out of the gate but these aren't nearly as common as they used to be. 2.4GHz phones are quite common and 5.8GHz phones are getting common as well. DECT 6.0 phones (1.9GHz) are a new player in North America. DECT phones are all digital only. 900MHz, 2.4 and 5.8GHz phones come in both analog and digital. Digital you can't receive but analog you can with appropriate equipment. I know you can get block downconverters that were used for wireless cable TV that will allow you to receive at least 2.4GHz but transmitting there is a different story. Wireless A/V senders work at these frequencies so perhaps there's a possibility there if you tinkered around with it. It helps that these are Wide FM for audio since the phones also use Wide FM. Also, in a pinch remember that radio transmissions have harmonics so a transmitter at 450MHz also transmits at 900MHz, 1350MHz, 1800MHz, etc but the further you get from the primary frequency (first order harmonic) the weaker the signals are. Filtering alone in the output will bring down any spurious emissions -60dB, or 1000000x weaker so 5 watts becomes 5 microwatts! Developing an external frequency multiplier circuit using the radio to supply the intermediate frequency could yield some possibilities.
I have an alright background in electronics but intern with a man that could prbly help me reverse engineer a cordless phone, i have done some research on this but come up with little do you know of any good resources for cordless phone hacks ect. Once again thank you for all the help, i am doing my best to research as many of my questions on my own as possible and so far i have learned allot but it is very nice to have a some expert help when i get stuck.
I've never read about anyone doing that but it's certainly possible. You might be breaking new ground. Be sure to write up some good documentation on it! I'd just pop one open and try to gather as many specs on the IC's on it as I could round up. An oscilloscope and a meter would help too. Good luck!
