Some time ago a thread appeared on two other amateur radio forums concerning US amateurs using phone below 7125. Several comments suggested that we should lobby the FCC to expand the US phone band down to 7100 or even to 7075. Others harshly responded with suggestions to the effect that this was nothing but more "anti-CW rubbish".
Saturday night (Sunday GMT), I decided to give 40 a listen while the Field Day operators were in full force. Since this contest includes all modes, and during the evening 40m seems to be the most active band for the contest, I thought this would be a good opportunity to take a snapshot of the usage of the various modes throughout this band. So I scanned the band several times between 0315 and 0340 GMT, when contest activity was probably at its peak. One thing I noticed right away was that the CW band seemed substantially more active with signals than the phone band, although more than the usual amount of phone activity was heard competing with broadcasters on 7200-7300. 7125-7200 was fully occupied, but the congestion was not unbearable as I recall the phone band on FD in years past. I slowly scanned the band several times during this time period, and here is what I observed: 7000-7067: Heavily congested with CW, peaking around 7040. Somewhat less active above 7050, but well occupied by CW stations all the way up to 7067. No RTTY, data or foreign SSB was heard on this segment. Data signals were heard on 7068, 7071, between 7073-7075 and 7101. One RTTY signal was heard on 7080. The only CW to be heard above 7067 were three signals: on 7108, 7113 and 7117. At one time during that 25-minute period I heard a total of four CW signals above 7067. At any one time, a total of 3-4 foreign SSB signals were heard between 7075 and 7125. The question I have to ask is this. If maintaining the current U.S. subband restrictions in the 7075-7125 segment is so essential for the preservation of the CW mode as some claim, why was there not more CW activity to-night in this segment during the contest, which brings stations of all modes out of the woodwork? Why was over 90% of the RTTY/Data activity between 7068 and 7075? Why was the rest of the band moderately to heavily congested with contest and other activity, while 7075-7125 was practically devoid of signals? There would be less griping from the DX crowd about AM'ers operating near 7160 if US amateurs, and US amateurs only, were not restricted by the FCC from using almost half the segment of the "new" 40m band where phone operation takes place world-wide. Don k4kyv _______________________________________________________________ This message was typed using the DVORAK keyboard layout. http://www.mwbrooks.com/dvorak/ http://gigliwood.com/abcd/ ______________________________________________________________ Our Main Website: http://www.amfone.net AMRadio mailing list Searchable Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ List Rules (must read!): http://w5ami.net/amradiofaq.html List Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/amradio Post: [email protected] To unsubscribe, send an email to [email protected] with the word unsubscribe in the message body. This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
