On 31 Jul 2007 at 22:33, Alan Melia wrote:
> With the realisation that this is not a limited access reflector and
> anyone can join and monitor the traffic. Let us assume that an
> official from Ofcom has decided to see how their Experimental Permit
> users are getting along, and subscribes to the Group.
>
> What does he hear today but a lot of moaning about not being able to
> operate if there are more than two signals in the 4khz allocation and
> suggestion of limiting it to manual morse (Note QRSS is "CW" !)
Oh dear, here we go again....
Firstly Alan should get his facts right, we only have 3kHz of
band....
Experimentation in amateur terms is far far more than just seeing how
far your signal goes. Building a transmitter, sorting out a suitable
antenna and matching it to make it efficient, getting round local QRN
problems etc. All these items are different than on the normal HF
allocations and lead to their own issues/problems. Then sorting out
receivers, and some people are using very unusual methods here -
using valves in some cases...
What has become very obvious to me in the past few months is that
QRSS and similar modes are simply unnecessary on 500kHz, the signal
to noise, even at -10dBm, is perfectly adequate to work virtually all
round Europe without resource to such modes. Remember that Jose
reports hearing GW4HOX on normal CW.... There seems no interest by
the USA ops in listening or working us over here either. Perhaps we
should indeed be concentrating more on the normal modes and comparing
what we can do down here with what we do on 160m, rather than
sticking with 136kHz techniques.
As for band plans, Chris G3XIZ has produced an excellent bandplan.
Maybe the details are a bit unnecessary, but the suggestion that
beacons/QRSS etc should be in the top 500Hz is definitely a good
idea. It does give a reasonable section of the band for use by the
other modes on a free come basis. I would suggest the current trend
to also have beacons down the bottom end is reversed.
And another point which worries me. Are we allowed to operate
unattended beacons on the band? There is nothing specific in my NOV
(but there again I only requested a permit for normal CW). The main
licence indicates you can unattended beacons on 2m and above, for all
lower bands they are only allowed in conjunction with DF
competitions. What is the situation on 500k, have any of those
running apparently unattended beacons actually asked?
By the way, in the early evening when Jose was listening there was
virtually nobody on the band apart from the few beacons mentioned. A
little later I called CQ and had chats with G3VTT and G3UNT. Called
GW4HOX later when he called CQ but he clearly wasn't hearing me.
I know I am in a minority, but beacons and QRSS do absolutely nothing
for me .....
73 Dave G3YMC
http://www.davesergeant.com
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