The DX window is a nearly completely obsolete concept for contests, now rejected by every contest sponsor except ARRL. The ARRL Contest Advisory Committee (CAC) in writing recommended discontinuing the window in the 160 contest, but that was nixed by someone in the ARRL chain of command. So the DX window in the ARRL contest is being continued in the ARRL 160 against the recommendation of their contest gurus, according to back channels, justified only by a single individual at HQ.
There is no US legal basis for the window, it's not in part 97, so strictly speaking it only exists in the ARRL 160. Please note that the 160 DX window is NOT in effect for the HF band ARRL DX in February, which includes 160m in the contest bands. In the back channels the word is that the contest sponsor does not include frequency data in the submitted Cabrillo contest log, therefore the window cannot be enforced, other than for an ARRL official to volunteer to manually listen during the entire contest and penalize ALL improper usage of of the window. Since the CAC is NOT in favor of the window to start with, there are no volunteers for this, and whoever is hanging onto the window won't spend his personal time either. So the window is not enforced, and certain USA stations are starting to act accordingly. Working the DX through the din of USA stations is a completely predictable aspect of the ARRL 160. It takes serious antenna work and operating skill to be able to do it. Good stations/operators can and do work JA/VK etc. It's an adult CONTEST, not T-ball where every child has to succeed. Why make everything easy? Then the other thing is: What, exactly what, was responsible for a given station/op not working a JA? Not aiming at any particular individual, but really, really, some of the operating practices one hears could keep one from being able to work the guy across the street. There's dB's from transceivers, dB's from amps, dB's from antennas, dB's from transmission lines, dB's from antenna system considerations. People complain about not being able to work some difficult DX and then I hear about what they have up for an antenna, and the loss mitigations that they do NOT have in place. Then there are the dB's in the operators' heads, dB's between the ears I like to call it. Particularly because there are QRP operators that regularly break pileups with excellent antenna systems and extra-crispy, extra-clever operating practices, and lids operating super-stations that couldn't work the next county if their lives depended upon it, the MEASURED dB's between the ears varies at least between 0 and 24.77 dB. Since lids sometimes destroy their own equipment in the fray, the difference must exceed 24.77, and so I have fastened on 27 dB as the conservative minimum possible dB between the ears. This lends itself to rules that I heard a lot when I was a teen first breaking into radio, "When some equipment isn't working, look FIRST at the operator." Or a related corollary designed to save money: "Rigorously rule out the operator before sending equipment back to the manufacturer." Which logically creates the blended rule from all the above: "Before complaining about the DX window, FIRST rigorously rule out the operator, then rigorously rule out the station, and only then post complaints on TopBand." 73, Guy K2AV On Sat, Dec 6, 2014 at 9:27 AM, Mike Waters <[email protected]> wrote: > After playing in the ARRL DX contest in the early morning hours, it looks > to me that what is *really* needed is a small DX window somewhere in the 15 > kHz JA segment 1810-1825. Heck, it could even be less than 5 kHz wide. > > From my QTH in the central USA, I could copy JAs who were working NA > stations; and some JAs spotted NA stations in the cluster. But 1810-1825 > was wall-to-wall NA stations calling CQ. > > What are the chances of such a DX window making it into the rules? Maybe in > a future Stew? > > 73, Mike > www.w0btu.com > > On Tue, Dec 2, 2014 at 3:52 AM, Petr Ourednik <[email protected]> wrote: > > > the split JA operation schema for decades ago was: > > JA TX > 1907.5 - 1912.5kHz and listen for rest or worls in between 1820 - > > 1825kHz. > > This "JA window" 1907.5 - 1912.5kHz has been not used in contests from > > 1999 by JARL > > because the band was too narrow. The SSB was not permitted. > > I worked several JA topbanders over there split down to 1820 - 1825kHz. > > > > According to the Ministry's announcement, effective April 1st 2000, > > additional 15kHz, i.e. from 1810 kHz to 1825 kHz, has been allocated for > > amateur radio use. The announcement was available in the Japanese > language > > at > > http://www.mpt.go.jp/top/public-comment/public-comment000207.html > > but it does not work I guess. > > > > You might be interested in JA band plans which is available here. > > > > > http://www.jarl.or.jp/English/6_Band_Plan/JapaneseAmateurBandplans20090330.pdf > > > _________________ > Topband Reflector Archives - http://www.contesting.com/_topband > _________________ Topband Reflector Archives - http://www.contesting.com/_topband
