I somewhat support the idea of using CW throughout the amateur bands. I realize that it is sometimes used in special cases, such as on voice nets where one station might be on CW, but that is not common.
Based upon the actions of the NTS traffic nets though, it seems very clear that most radio amateurs do not agree with this and have moved below 3600 instead of moving some of the nets to perhaps the General voice/images areas of the bands here in the U.S. On the other hand, the only places where CW is permitted for all HF licensed U.S. radio amateurs on the lower HF bands is in the Data/RTTY subbands on 80 and 40 meters. This allows for the maximum number of participants, which will now even include Tech Plus and Novice licensees all on a common band of freqencies. One underutilized band that would work well for local/Section communications, when 80 meters goes "long," would be 160. The other night our Section CW net was nearly impossible to copy on 80, but 160 was superb with low QRN and strong signals within the Section. I know that antennas are considered the limiting factor, but as long as you have a good ground radial system, it doesn't take much of an antenna to act as a radiator. I have a low wire only 15 feet or so high that seems to work comparable to when I had a near full size 160 inverted vee dipole at 30 feet apex. 73, Rick, KV9U expeditionradio wrote: >>Bill N9DSJ wrote: >>Hi Bonnie, >>Why will this be "pushed" down? I used the term "push" in >>quotes as I am not sure who is doing the pushing. >> >> > > >Hi Bill, > >The FCC did the all the "pushing down". They compressed the 80m Data >subband to 100kHz. The only DATA subband on 80 meters for USA after 15 >December is 3500-3600kHz. The CW "band" remains 3500-4000kHz... there >is plenty of space for CW... a total of 500kHz. > >Bonnie KQ6XA > > > >
