To a certain extent, the same thing has happened on 40m since (most of) the BC stations went away, as happened on 75 when the band was expanded down to 3600. Back in the spring, there was a lot of activity on 7160 at first, until the novelty wore off, and gradually the activity has dwindled.
Then, there is the summertime QRN, combined with Daylight Shifting Time. In the summer months, many of us are engaging in outdoor activities until sundown, and by the time we come in the house, grab a bite to eat, and then try to play radio, we find that many of the hams on the air are already signing out to play the go to bed early/get up early routine for the next work day. And the remaining signals are often difficult to copy through all the atmospheric noise. Hopefully, things will improve as the days get shorter and better conditions in late afternoon and early evening, the QRN begins to subside, and in a few weeks we will go back to real time. A problem we may encounter as the bands get more active in the evening hours will be SSB QRM. 7285-90-95 is usually clobbered with broadcast signals during the evening hours, but 7160 is clear of broadcasting until about 0400Z when the cat and mouse game between broadcasters and white-noise jammers starts up in Ethiopia and Eritrea, often wiping out everything from 7155 to 7185. 7160 is usually excellent in the late afternoon and early evening, but it's also in prime DX territory. I remember last spring, some of the SSB DX chasers would gripe about AM operating in what they considered their exclusive playground, and of course, there was plenty of adjacent channel QRM. But this also gives us an opportunity to work Europeans on 40m phone. Earlier in the year I managed to work a few Europeans on 7160. They were on SSB, but said they could read my AM signal perfectly. A couple of these stations even switched over to AM and we had two-way transatlantic QSOs. If only some of the European group that meets on 3705 would give 7160 a try... The easiest way to grab 7160 for the evening is to start early before the activity gets heavy, call CQ if no AM is heard, and then continue the round table throughout the evening hours. So far, I haven't heard the kind of SSB jamming we are so used to on 75m. To the SSB DX chasers who gripe about AM on 7160 taking up too much of their precious DX space, my reply is that they should petition the FCC to extend the phone band down to 7100 or 7075 kHz. There is very little US CW, RTTY or data activity above 7060, and when 7075-7125 is not vacantly lying idle, it becomes filled with foreign SSB. It is totally ridiculous that the continental USA remains the only country in the world restricted from operating phone in the prime DX segment. Some die-hard CW enthusiasts want to hold on to that portion of the "CW band" at all costs, come hell or high water, but my response to them is "use it or lose it". I rarely hear more than two or three simultaneous CW signals or QSO's in that whole 50 kHz segment. Maybe the AM community should consider submitting our own petition to the FCC, but I would suggest waiting to see just how the 40m activity pans out this season, so we could formulate something well though-out, based on real observations, not just speculation over what "might" be. 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
