I wish folk would quit saying that CW ops haven't lost anything. It was
promised that any changes would not narrow anyone's bandwidth. Nonsense! We
CW and digital folks have lost a LOT. We lost the ability to be left alone in
150 KC of bandwidth in the 80 meter band. Yes- we CAN send almost everywhere
with CW. The problem is we cant HEAR in that part of the band that has to now
be shared with more and more SSB stations moving down on us. CW filters ARE
narrow, and allow cutting out the upper and lower sides of a signal position,
supposedly allowing us to copy better. What most don't or wont admit is that a
2.8 kc SSB signal sitting anywhere within the CW signal passband, still is
there in that narrow CW portion. You cannot filter out something that is
supposed to be there. No matter that I have a dsp filter, and a 200cy cw
filter, the darn SSB is still there within that passband. It is the same with
PSK, RTTY or any of the other narrow digital signals. The SSB is still going
to sit right on the same frequency spectrum we are using. To me, it is much
like the JC Pennys salesman I heard explaining to the customer, back in the
60s. "You have 120 channels on this CB. 40 upper sideband, 40 lower sideband
and 40 AM" I almost choked! This guy couldn't put two and two together to
realize that it was still just 40 channels, no matter what mode was being used
on them.
Last night, I was sitting on 3.605 -10 working one CW station right after the
other, just before midnight. It was just as bout a clear band as I ever heard,
from QRN. In fact the S meter hardly moved from noise. At the (sad) appointed
hour, I just said goodbye to one guy on CW and switched over to SSB to
hopefully get the first SSB contact on the same freq - called CQ - and all hell
busted loose. There must have been literally hundreds of SSB signals suddenly
calling each other, or calling CQ. Including right on the freq I was talking
on. I went up the band and that whole 175 KC was literally jammed with callers
- mostly talking about all their new "rights". I went on up to 3.750 and
listened thru the band to the top, and there were less than a dozen QSOs there.
So much for the new bandwidth to "allow stations to spread out".
One of the worrisome things I heard was several stations talking about moving
their 4 square antennas down to tune in right on 3.600 so they would cover both
CW and SSB. They certainly have the right to tune an antenna to where they
want, but I wonder if these guys are really CW ops, are just want to smash the
lower end of the band.
The astounding thing, I went below 3.6 to listen to CW stations again, and the
noise level had suddenly risen to an S7 up close to 3.6 and slightly decreased
as I went down the band, but never got as low as before the catastrophe. I
cant believe this was due to all the SSB stations about, but it was just a few
minutes from one point to the other. I hope this is not indicitave of future
conditions. I just now checked again, and the noise levels in the SSB portion
seem to be s7-8 with pops up to above s9. at 3.545 the noise is s7 and at
3.5001 it is s6. The weather outside is clear, few if any winds and in the
upper 50s.
And yes - it also affected the 40 meter band, with CW ops loosing 25 kc( or as
some would say - SSB Gaining 25 kc) Its really odd that, just when Europe is
becoming more able to use 7.1-7.2, so that there is no longer any necessity to
work split operation on SSB between the states and Europe, and shortly - the
rest of the world as well. There is plenty of room for SSB DX to DX on 7.150 -
7.2 now. The 7.2-7.3 is left for stateside SSB guys to chat among themselves.
So - digital ops lost 25 KC of band again.
Hey - I said it would happen- and it has. I just heard a DX station calling CQ
DX on 3.580 SSB - right on top of an on-going RTTY QSO. It wont be long till
hundreds have slid down to get away from the US SSB signals - and now where
does that leave CW and PSK? I hope cooler heads will prevail and the DX
settles somewhere away from the low end, but have my doubts.
Danny Douglas N7DC
ex WN5QMX ET2US WA5UKR ET3USA
SV0WPP VS6DD N7DC/YV5 G5CTB all
DX 2-6 years each
.
QSL LOTW-buro- direct
As courtesy I upload to eQSL but if you
use that - also pls upload to LOTW
or hard card.
moderator [EMAIL PROTECTED]
----- Original Message -----
From: Andrew J. O'Brien
To: [email protected]
Sent: Friday, December 15, 2006 7:08 PM
Subject: [digitalradio] 15 dec summary ?
Thanks for reminded us Rick. With all that has been written, I have
forgotten what is new. Would the following rough summary be close?
Some parts of the 40 and 80M phone privileges have been extended in to the
former CW or digital portions.?
CW operators have lost nothing, just have to share more ?
Digital modes, other than automated stations , remain mostly unaffected
except for the ability to send some images within MFSK16 ?
SSTV folks have to remain in the "phone" portion of the bands since those
signals contain "images" and are wider than 500 Hz
CW net folks maybe miffed and feel the need to move but they don;t have to if
they don't mind having SSB signals as neighbours ?
What else did I miss ?
----- Original Message -----
From: KV9U
To: [email protected]
Sent: Friday, December 15, 2006 6:51 PM
Subject: Re: [digitalradio] 15 dec
David,
Most of the new rules are understandable, just a few that were confusing
or not completely clear or, at least in one case, in conflict with other
rules.
The ARRL announced today that their late filed Petition for
Reconsideration has not been acted upon by the FCC, therefore the new
regulation is now in effect.
The 500 Hz semi-automatic automatic stations will continue to operate
just as they have for many years although the ones that formerly
operated abover 3600 KHz will have to migrate down below the 3600
ceiling here in the U.S. for digital data/RTTY.
There will be no fully automatic 80 meter stations within the U.S. at
this time, since there is no automatic area available under the new
rules. This also means that there will be no semi-automatic stations
within the U.S. that operate wide band modes either since those stations
must operate within the automatic segment.
That does not mean that there will be no Pactor 3 operation since it
would be legal to transmit P3 from a station with a control operator
present to an automatic station in other countries, and there may be
some who will have a BBS system with a control operator present or with
some kind of remote operation, that would allow them to continue to
operate in a similar manner to what they had been doing. But it will
likely mean a lot fewer P3 stations on the 80 meter band.
73,
Rick, KV9U
David Michael Gaytko // WD4KPD wrote:
>with all the "translations" of the new 80m rules, i just wonder
>if the auto/semiauto stations are gonna run in the 500hz section,
>or gonna wait untill clarification.
>
>would surely be looked on poorly by the narrow modes, and if
>not legal, would look poorly to the FCC should they desire to
>reconsider.
>
>just wondering what will happen ?
>
>david/wd4kpd
>
>
>
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