Using HAM bands for drones

[mini_pilot14]

I was wondering if you could modify a drone to use the 70cm or 6 meter bands to allow for much longer ranges. These bands also require a HAM license.

 

[Yorkshire_Pud]

Why?
If nothing else, would the drone have the battery life to use "much longer ranges", bear in mind that wind, fore, aft and side, also enter the necessary considerations.

 

[Lasidora]

I'm a UK Class A Licenced Radio Amateur & about 5 years back myself & 4 other hams within a 40 mile radius were sending fast scan TV signals between ourselves on 1.2Ghz we were switching back & forth between analogue & digital to compare quality etc, anyway one of the hams ( located in Heswall, Wirral ) noticed he was picking something up on his spectrum analyser unit tuned across the 23/24cm band, it turned out to be Radio Controlled Plane enthusiasts using the 23cm band to transmit their video footage from the plane back to ground on 1250Mhz when we turned our directional yagi antennas in the direction of the signal (Macclesfield) it was being received in full colour with no noise at over 74km away, I tracked the exact signal source the same time the next day and after speaking to them they were only using around 1000mw but in a licenced section of a radio ham band, they were never seen again & later on I heard from a semi local ATV repeater keeper that his repeater had had breakthrough due to this.
In answer to the original question, you could in theory use these bands but it would be frowned upon & depending on your region get you into a lot of trouble, over here in the UK Ofcom would not allow it, also the 433Mhz band although great for range is prone to massive amounts of in band interference, 1240-1300Mhz band may appear empty to the unitiated, but can often be in use by high powered users, UK users can output up to 400w on all bands which would swamp the front end of any RC within range.

 

[mini_pilot14]

I'm a UK Class A Licenced Radio Amateur & about 5 years back myself & 4 other hams within a 40 mile radius were sending fast scan TV signals between ourselves on 1.2Ghz we were switching back & forth between analogue & digital to compare quality etc, anyway one of the hams ( located in Heswall, Wirral ) noticed he was picking something up on his spectrum analyser unit tuned across the 23/24cm band, it turned out to be Radio Controlled Plane enthusiasts using the 23cm band to transmit their video footage from the plane back to ground on 1250Mhz when we turned our directional yagi antennas in the direction of the signal (Macclesfield) it was being received in full colour with no noise at over 74km away, I tracked the exact signal source the same time the next day and after speaking to them they were only using around 1000mw but in a licenced section of a radio ham band, they were never seen again & later on I heard from a semi local ATV repeater keeper that his repeater had had breakthrough due to this.
In answer to the original question, you could in theory use these bands but it would be frowned upon & depending on your region get you into a lot of trouble, over here in the UK Ofcom would not allow it, also the 433Mhz band although great for range is prone to massive amounts of in band interference, 1240-1300Mhz band may appear empty to the unitiated, but can often be in use by high powered users, UK users can output up to 400w on all bands which would swamp the front end of any RC within range.

Thank you for the advice. The 6 meter band has some portions open for RCC. I may look into that since it seems that 70cm is not he best choice.

 

[Paint Rock Drones]

Are you asking a technical question or a legal question? Since going any further than the current drone technology allows would almost certainly take you out of VLOS (visual line of sight), your flight would not be legal per FAA rules. Once you have broken one set of rules I'm not sure why the FCC rules would bother you.
If you are asking if it is technically possible, I suppose that would depend on the type of drone you are talking about. I suspect it would be very challenging if not impossible to change the way a DJI drone communicates with its controller.

 

[ScottTX]

Interesting as some of us old timers were using 6 meters when we were into RC back in the day. That was actually one of the drivers for me getting my Ham ticket.

Related discussion:

M3 4g Dongle

Has anyone tried this? Found a workaround with their own 4g dongle? Thanks!

mavicpilots.com

 

[mini_pilot14]

Interesting as some of us old timers were using 6 meters when we were into RC back in the day. That was actually one of the drivers for me getting my Ham ticket.

Related discussion:

M3 4g Dongle

Has anyone tried this? Found a workaround with their own 4g dongle? Thanks!

mavicpilots.com

I have a tech license and wanted to use 6 meters to fly drones. Do you know how I could do this?

 

[DoomMeister]

I was wondering if you could modify a drone to use the 70cm or 6 meter bands to allow for much longer ranges. These bands also require a HAM license.

If you are interested in this type of control for drones I would suggest you peruse the FPVPilots forum and do some searching for building sub 250 gram drones. Many do use frequencies where you need your FCC tech ticket.

 

[Fergus]

Are you asking a technical question or a legal question? Since going any further than the current drone technology allows would almost certainly take you out of VLOS (visual line of sight), your flight would not be legal per FAA rules. Once you have broken one set of rules I'm not sure why the FCC rules would bother you.
If you are asking if it is technically possible, I suppose that would depend on the type of drone you are talking about. I suspect it would be very challenging if not impossible to change the way a DJI drone communicates with its controller.

Why do you believe there would be an issue with FCC rules? The 6m band has a portion specificly designed for this use. I used to use it for an RC plane back in the 80's. Assuming he's licensed for it of course.

 

[sar104]

I was wondering if you could modify a drone to use the 70cm or 6 meter bands to allow for much longer ranges. These bands also require a HAM license.

The data rate in those bands is far too low and the antennas too large. Not even remotely possible.

 

[AZDave]

Most of the answers here completely miss the point. Radio control of a drone, together with a video feed, takes far more bandwidth than is allowed or even available on the lower ham radio bands, and that includes 6 meters and 70 cm. WiFi bandwidths are about 22 MHz!

The electronics on modern drones have very little in common with radio controlled planes. It's like the difference between an old dialup phone and a cellphone. Radio controlled planes can get by with a few KHz bandwidths.

 

[Rich QR]

Most of the answers here completely miss the point. Radio control of a drone, together with a video feed, takes far more bandwidth than is allowed or even available on the lower ham radio bands, and that includes 6 meters and 70 cm. WiFi bandwidths are about 22 MHz!

Right!

The bandwidth to control a drone (or a fixed wing RC plane) isn't the problem. But if you expect to get a video and data feed back using the bandwidth available on 6m, you clearly don't understand what's involved!

Without any video feed, at least the requirement for VLOS becomes less ambiguous.

If you're considering GHz and above, it's at least possible to get the video feed, but the technical challenges will be difficult.

 

[gajman]

Why do you believe there would be an issue with FCC rules? The 6m band has a portion specificly designed for this use. I used to use it for an RC plane back in the 80's. Assuming he's licensed for it of course.

I'm sure you could. I know friends who have used ham band for garage door openers. The real issue here, and I have been licensed for about 36 years, is that you can't use amateur radio for business purposes. So if you wanted to do that with a drone it would be purely recreational. I don't think the FCC has changed those rules.

A lot of telemetry is done on the ham bands to control repeaters, report site status for remote transmitters, etc.

I used the 6-meter band some time back to control fixed-wing models. Been a long time.

 

[Firejay27]

As a HAM myself that idea is crazy and not worth it.
Crazy because HAM bands are not private, encrypted or digitally encoded so someone keying up just for the fun of it over your transmission would kill your connection to the drone. Two, as said in an earlier post, HAM isn't designed for continuous transmissions like that. 20-40 minutes of hogging up two frequencies (one for Tx to the drone and one Rx for data from the drone).

Not worth it because if you're using a DJI drone with Occusync then you have all the range you need to fly legal VLOS.

With that said, there are a handful of RC airplane pilots that use HAM bands but not in the frequencies ranges that you're asking about and under very different circumstances.

 

[Fergus]

I'm sure you could. I know friends who have used ham band for garage door openers. The real issue here, and I have been licensed for about 36 years, is that you can't use amateur radio for business purposes. So if you wanted to do that with a drone it would be purely recreational. I don't think the FCC has changed those rules.

A lot of telemetry is done on the ham bands to control repeaters, report site status for remote transmitters, etc.

I used the 6-meter band some time back to control fixed-wing models. Been a long time.

I didn't see any mention of intending to use it for commercial use but I completely agree, and I have been a ham for about 42 years. If that's relevant to the discussion. I would hope that anyone using 6m for repeater control and/or telemetry would abide by the band plan not use the portion that's specifically set aside for RC control.

I also used it for fixed wing for a while manly due to that fact that no one else was using them so I was less likely to conflict with others.

As a HAM myself that idea is crazy and not worth it.
Crazy because HAM bands are not private, encrypted or digitally encoded so someone keying up just for the fun of it over your transmission would kill your connection to the drone. Two, as said in an earlier post, HAM isn't designed for continuous transmissions like that. 20-40 minutes of hogging up two frequencies (one for Tx to the drone and one Rx for data from the drone).

Not worth it because if you're using a DJI drone with Occusync then you have all the range you need to fly legal VLOS.

With that said, there are a handful of RC airplane pilots that use HAM bands but not in the frequencies ranges that you're asking about and under very different circumstances.

I hardly consider using two frequencies that are specifically designated for that use as "hogging" the frequencies. How is is not designed for continuous use? That's what the freqs are allocated for.

I do agree, however, that it's not really worth the bother given the current technology. But that was really the question was it?

I'm curious what other circumstances they're using them for in RC if not for using the RC freqs?

 

[Firejay27]

I hardly consider using two frequencies that are specifically designated for that use as "hogging" the frequencies. How is is not designed for continuous use? That's what the freqs are allocated for.

Yes the frequencies are designated as data frequencies however they aren't designed to be continuous transmission such as that you would be using them for with remote control. I know there is a whole community out there that using HAM bands for RC planes but I wouldn't trust that myself for the reasons I mentioned in my previous reply.

 

[lookout]

The drone becomes the antenna above the terrestrial obstructions if nothing else.