Starting from 13th May Italian Minister of Telecomunications announced that the frequencies between 7100 Khz and 7200 khz have been assigned to the amateur radio service in secondary status with a power limit of 24dBW (251 W EIRP!).

Italian hams were expecting the extension of the 40 meters band starting from 29th March 2009, but an unexpected notice of the Minister announced that in order to support and promote amateur radio in italy, decided to assign starting from now to the scheduled date the secondary status, allowing therefore Italians to operate also on the range 7100-7200 spectrum.I expect many Italian hams will have to put hands on their antennas in order to extend their resonating frequency !

Need more ideas ? Some plans for 40 meter antennas