Four meters is rather a unique band as it is primarily used by the UK. The band became available to UK amateurs in November 1956 and started life with a mere 200KHz bandwidth. Today it extends from 70.025 to 70.5MHz.

Other countries that currently have 70MHz allocations are Denmark, Ireland, Greenland, Portugal, Croatia and South Africa.

The fact that the band is not widespread, with no allocation in Japan or America, means that with the exception of the recently reintroduced AKD-4001 4m FM Mobile Transceiver, there is very little commercially available equipment. Therefore home brew equipment is required. Transverters are a popular method to get going on the band using existing HF or 2 metre transceivers.

If you are someone who likes the challenge in building your own equipment then this band could be of interest to you. To find out more, visit the 4 metre website.