FM trades bandwidth for quality. It needs far more spectrum than SSB, which is why it lives on VHF and UHF where there is room, but within range it sounds like a telephone call rather than a distant voice in a storm.
FM has a capture effect: the strongest signal wins outright rather than mixing with the others. Two stations transmitting at once produce one intelligible signal and one that vanishes, sometimes with a harsh buzz.
Most newcomers make their first contact on an FM repeater, and most local nets run on one. It is the sociable end of the hobby.
At a Glance
- Category
- Phone
- Bandwidth
- About 16 kHz
- What you need
- Any VHF/UHF handheld or mobile radio
- Where to listen
- 2 m and 70 cm repeaters, and the calling frequencies