Why bother to have a plan ?
As you can see by the Cheshire events list things can get very busy even within a single county. Give that radio waves respect no boundaries then there is a requirement for a plan to ensure a fair allocation of frequencies between the various groups in the North West. The aim is that on average every group should be able to carry out RAYNET operations without interference from others.
The band plans as adopted from 1st January 2021 are :-
Explanation of Bandplan notes
Cumbria reserve 433.7000 MHz for link comms with the Isle of Man. Other link frequencies in this band as determined by site situations.
FM Standards
At the present time these can vary significantly, depending upon which band(s) you are using:
PLEASE NOTE - That when you move from 25kHz to 12.5kHz spacing on 2m due to the IARU changes, YOU MUST ALSO HALVE YOUR DEVIATION - otherwise users on the adjacent channels will suffer interference, because your 5kHz wide deviated signal spills over into their channel ! You should reallyu have been doing this from 1st Jan '98 anyway ! Users of Dual-Band sets may therefore find that they have the same standard on 70cm as well, with twice as many channels!
Data on VHF & UHF
When using data on VHF & UHF, it is generally suggested that the deviation is set to approximately two-thirds of the normal speech deviation on the band(s) in question. In practice one will often find that too much deviation causes the data to be corrupted, which will soon be evident in unsuccessful attempts at Packet connects.