Mal,

I have been extremely successful of late in not rising to your bait on
various topics. This time I really must take umbrage at your rather
sweeping statement about the Maritime Service vis-a-vis the 500khz
allocation.
The maritime Service has been almost 100% a "commercial" service and as
such has had as its primary interest the maintenance of a viable
communications service. As far as I am aware. no serious research has
been done by that service into weak-signal and similar modes apart from
that done by the various military interests. Effectively, as soon as
alternative and arguably more efficient/cost effective alternatives
became available these commercial interests naturally migrated to them.
This is not the same as saying they had "exhausted all possibilities and
concluded it is of no further use." Your statement is rather like saying
that the coming of the motor car rendered the bicycle or the horse
obsolete and of "no further use"! It's a funny thing but in my travels I
see plenty of both in widespread use! 
Amateur radio for many of us encompasses a wide range of activities and
your constant carping and promotion of your own rather biased interests
gets on the nerves of quite a lot of us to the extent that some members
no longer subscribe to the group. 
Perhaps you should consider the view that, as with the cyclists and
horse riders there are modes of operation that lead to the promotion of
health and happiness and a calm and healthy state of mind.





On Fri, 2009-11-13 at 17:44 +0000, mal hamilton wrote:
> Lots of pirates reported around the east african coast and Indian
> ocean but now Radio pirates !!!! on 500.
> How would one know a Pirate? their style of sending on cw or the way
> they WSPR.
> Beware of the WSPR merchants no ID just carriers switching on/off as
> far as the casual radio amateur is concerned. Instead of a simple
> approach worldwide to issue Radio Amateur licences for the
> traditional CW mode on 500, appliance operator licences were issued
> for Broadcast modes ie 
> CW beacons, Data beacons, and other transmissions, which must stop at
> Country Borders and must not be reported by anyone hearing such
> transmissions beyond these Borders.
> In other words the whole 500 khz business is Chaotic, whereas the
> other MF allocation 160 metres is orderly and sensibly regulated using
> in the main CW and SSB.
> It would appear the appropriate license authorities do not think the
> Appliance Operator has much to contribute to the advancement or
> research on 500.
> The marine service has been using the band for the past 100 years and
> has exhausted all possibilities and concluded it is of no further use,
> with the advancement of Satellite communications technology. 
> 500 in EU seems to be a fun band for WSPR Beacons where no operator
> participation is required just unattended machines belching out bits
> of data and generating QRM to the few Radio amateurs trying to get by
> on CW.
> Let us have your opinion.
> De G3KEV
>  
>  
>  
>  
-- 
73 es gd dx de pat g4gvw
 qth nr felixstowe uk
(east coast, county of suffolk)