Hello Chris / group.
Thank you for the proposed band plan. Looks very sensible.
I suspect that as 500kHz continues to evolve, use of the different modes
will experience peaks and troughs in their popularity and some expansion or
contraction of segments may occur to accommodate these changes.
Of course there must always be the provision for a new station on the band
who may be crystal controlled to transmit wherever they are able to. But
hopefully, when the interest takes hold, that person will want to build a VFO of
some sort and will then be able to follow the bandplan.
Personally, I think the trend for transmitting beacons will quickly wear
off. Equally I feel it would only take a couple of long distance QSOs using
QRSS for that to become very popular albeit for a short time. Nevertheless some
fairly consistent presence on the band does provide a signal
to listen to and encourage people to join in. Perhaps a reduction in
the 'beacon segment' and expansion of the QRSS segment may be beneficial.
Looking to the future, if our access to the band is extended beyond 03/08,
then it may be nice to have beacons better organised. It is nice to know
when propagation is favourable but there is little point having lots of signals
from the same general geographic location. I know these days locking a beacon to
a time signal (MSF or GPS) is fairly straightforward and perhaps a small network
on a single frequency could be a long term objective. For example. 4
stations on 1 frequency but located in the 4 corners of the UK.. It would
be very efficient on spectrum and have less potential for desensing
locally.
Perhaps all this could be discussed at the HF convention where I'm sure
there will be a couple of lectures on 500k.
Once again, thanks for the bandplan initiative
73
David
CT
DISCUSSION POINTS
Obviously an ideal band plan would
benefit as many stations as possible to the inconvenience of as few as
possible.
There seems to be a need to separate the QRSS modes and
beacons from the 'straight' cw segment of the band.
There may be a case
for beacon and QRSS 'silence periods' during times of likely high cw activity
(weekends).
QRSS modes and PSK/RTTY need defined band plan
locations.
As most of the stations are congregated in the SE corner of
the UK, local QSO's amongst themselves should ideally be separated from QSO's
with more distant stations.
It would be useful to have a QRP calling
frequency to facilitate 'homing in' on weaker stations.
Is there
a case for the call 'CQ CQ CQ X' to denote a crystal controlled
transmission ?
73 G3XIZ SK
