Ross, those frequencies you mentioned are used by local government weather authorities. They launch special weather balloons (Sonde balloons) which provides important data for weather forecasting.

The telemetry data is easily decoded by using a program called "Sonde Monitor". Just google it and you will see lots of info about it.

Special permit is required to transmit on those frequencies.

JP

On Tue, May 16, 2017 at 7:06 PM, Ross Whenmouth ross@topwire.co.nz wrote:

Hi,

I have had a look at the ZL radio spectrum license register, and I did not find any S-band allocations for Rocket Lab, but I did find 4x "interesting" 400 MHz frequencies - 400.3 MHz, 400.7 MHz, 401.1 MHz and 401.6 MHz, with emission mode 150KF1DWT and EIRP of -6 dBW.

The licence indicates that these frequencies are a "meteorological aid". I have no idea what sort of meteorological aid they may be though - weather balloon channels? wind profiling radar? (surely not with only 250 mW EIRP?) or something else?

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