US Amateur Radio Bands: Frequency Charts & What It’s Good For

The workhorse. If you own one radio, it works here. Every US ham above Novice has full privileges on this band, handhelds are cheap, repeater coverage is dense, and a quarter-wave antenna is 19 inches long. This is where local emergency nets live.

Realistic range

1–5 mi simplex HT to HT; 20–50 mi via repeater

Antenna

19″ quarter wave — trivially portable

Best for

Family, neighborhood, county nets, ARES/RACES

Weakness

Line of sight. Terrain stops it cold.

The urban partner to 2 meters. Shorter wavelength penetrates buildings and reflects around structures better, so it often wins downtown where 2m struggles. Nearly every dual-band handheld covers both, so there is no reason not to have both programmed.

Realistic range

Slightly less than 2m in open terrain; often better in cities

Antenna

6″ quarter wave — pocketable

Best for

Urban simplex, linked repeater systems, digital voice

Weakness

Foliage and rain absorb it more than 2m

The forgotten band, and that is exactly why it is valuable. Almost nobody monitors 222 MHz, which means when 2 meters is saturated with traffic or deliberately jammed, this band is wide open. Radios are less common and cost more, but propagation sits nicely between 2m and 70cm. A genuine sleeper for group comms.

Realistic range

Comparable to 2m, sometimes slightly better

Antenna

12″ quarter wave

Best for

Uncongested group comms, backup to 2m

Weakness

Limited radio selection; few repeaters

Called the Magic Band for good reason. Most days it behaves like a slightly better 2 meters. Then sporadic-E propagation opens and a Technician with 50 watts is suddenly talking a thousand miles with no repeater and no HF license. Unpredictable, but it is the one place a Technician gets real distance.

Realistic range

Local most days; 500–1,500 mi during openings

Antenna

Roughly 4.5 ft quarter wave — vehicle-mountable

Best for

Technicians who want range without an upgrade

Weakness

You cannot schedule an opening. Peaks late spring through summer.

The only HF band where a Technician gets voice privileges — and most Technicians never find out. 28.300–28.500 MHz is open to Technicians for SSB at up to 200 watts. When the solar cycle is strong, this band goes worldwide on modest power. When it is weak, it is nearly dead. We are past the peak of Cycle 25, so conditions are gradually declining but still workable.

Realistic range

Global during solar max daytime; local ground wave otherwise

Antenna

8.5 ft quarter wave — smallest practical HF antenna

Best for

Technicians testing HF before upgrading

Weakness

Entirely dependent on solar activity

If you can only have one HF band, make it this one. 40 meters is the most dependable all-season regional band there is. By day, a low dipole gives you NVIS coverage out to a few hundred miles with no repeater, no internet and no infrastructure. By night it stretches across the continent. This is the backbone of serious emergency HF work.

Realistic range

50–400 mi day (NVIS); 1,000+ mi night

Antenna

66 ft dipole, hung 15–25 ft for NVIS

Best for

State and regional emergency nets, the primary prepper HF band

Weakness

Crowded, and shares space with powerful shortwave broadcasters

40 meters’ night shift. When the sun goes down and 40 gets long and skips over your neighbors, 80 meters keeps regional traffic alive out to a few hundred miles. Most state and section emergency nets meet here after dark. The catch is size: a full dipole is 130 feet of wire, which rules it out for a lot of suburban lots.

Realistic range

Regional after dark; short range by day

Antenna

130 ft dipole — the real constraint on this band

Best for

Nighttime regional nets, winter operation

Weakness

Antenna size, and heavy static in summer storms

The long-haul band. 20 meters is open to somewhere in the world almost every daylight hour, in nearly any part of the solar cycle — which is why it is the most reliable choice for reaching outside your region. If your plan involves contacting people more than a few states away, this is the band. 14.300 MHz has carried emergency and health-and-welfare traffic for decades.

Realistic range

1,000 mi to worldwide, daytime

Antenna

33 ft dipole, or a compact vertical

Best for

Out-of-region contact, long-distance nets, digital modes

Weakness

Largely closes at night. Poor for talking to your own county.

Unusual and strategically important: this band is shared directly with federal government stations, which makes it the natural place for amateur-to-agency interoperability during a disaster. It fills the propagation gap between 40m and 80m, giving solid NVIS coverage around the clock. The rules changed on 13 February 2026 — see the notice below.

Realistic range

Reliable NVIS out to ~400 mi, day or night

Antenna

~88 ft dipole, low

Best for

Interoperability with federal stations, gap-filling NVIS

Weakness

Secondary status, low power, USB only on the channels

A narrow 50 kHz slice with no voice and no contests — which makes it one of the quietest and most orderly bands on HF. Excellent for low-power digital traffic when you need a message to get through rather than a conversation. Behaves like a blend of 40m and 20m, usable day and night.

Realistic range

Several hundred to a few thousand miles, around the clock

Antenna

46 ft dipole

Best for

CW and digital message traffic, QRP work

Weakness

No voice permitted. 200 W ceiling. Shared with other services.

A WARC band, meaning contests are prohibited here by gentleman’s agreement — so it stays civil even on the busiest weekends. Propagation sits between 20m and 15m, often open when 20 is crowded. A good second choice for long-haul work.

Realistic range

Long distance, daytime

Antenna

26 ft dipole

Best for

Contest-free long-distance work

Weakness

Narrow band, needs decent solar conditions

When the sun cooperates, 15 meters delivers long distance on modest power with an antenna half the size of a 20m dipole. Strongly tied to the solar cycle — excellent near solar max, thin near solar min. Technicians get CW privileges here.

Realistic range

Worldwide daytime when the band is open

Antenna

22 ft dipole — easy to fit on a small lot

Best for

Long distance with limited antenna space

Weakness

Unusable for long stretches of the solar cycle

Another WARC band, narrow and contest-free. Behaves much like 10 meters but stays open a bit longer into declining solar conditions. Lightly used, so signals that would be buried on 20m can be readable here.

Realistic range

Long distance in good conditions

Antenna

19 ft dipole

Best for

Quiet long-distance work near solar max

Weakness

Only 100 kHz wide; solar dependent

The Topband, sitting just above the AM broadcast band. Exceptional nighttime groundwave and regional coverage, and largely immune to the solar disturbances that shut down the higher bands — which is a real advantage during a geomagnetic storm. The price is a very large antenna and a lot of daytime absorption.

Realistic range

Regional to continental at night; very short by day

Antenna

260 ft dipole full size — most people compromise

Best for

Nighttime regional work during solar disturbances

Weakness

Antenna size, summer static, daytime uselessness

Shares spectrum with unlicensed ISM devices — cordless phones, meters, LoRa gear — so it is noisy. But for hams it is 26 MHz of bandwidth, which makes it useful for high-speed data links and mesh networking between fixed points.

Realistic range

Line of sight; good point-to-point with directional antennas

Antenna

3″ quarter wave; small Yagis are very effective

Best for

Data links, mesh networks, experimentation

Weakness

Crowded with unlicensed devices; limited commercial gear

Sixty megahertz of bandwidth, enough for amateur television and high-rate data. Antennas are tiny and high-gain dishes are practical. Mostly the domain of experimenters, but valuable for dedicated point-to-point links between fixed locations.

Realistic range

Line of sight; long hauls possible with dishes

Antenna

2″ quarter wave; small dishes give large gain

Best for

ATV, high-rate data, fixed links

Weakness

Niche equipment; strictly line of sight

Just below the AM broadcast band. Remarkably stable propagation with very low power, but a 5 W EIRP ceiling and an enormous antenna requirement put this firmly in experimenter territory. Not a practical emergency communications option for most people.

Realistic range

Hundreds of miles at night with an efficient antenna

Antenna

Large loaded vertical; efficiency is dismal

Best for

Weak-signal experimentation

Weakness

5 W EIRP cap, antenna size, mandatory registration

The lowest amateur allocation, and purely a technical challenge. A 1 W EIRP limit against a wavelength well over a mile means antenna efficiency is measured in fractions of a percent. Fascinating, but there is no realistic prepper application here.

Realistic range

Continental with extreme effort and slow digital modes

Antenna

Enormous, and still profoundly inefficient

Best for

Serious weak-signal experimenters only

Weakness

1 W EIRP. Everything about it is hard.

All modes are authorized to all licensees except Novices on these allocations, per §97.301(a). Strictly line of sight, but the available bandwidth is vast and small dishes produce enormous gain — useful for dedicated links between fixed sites.