Hi Stefan, despite Roger's plea it is a known fact that there are a limited
number of people interested in "doing it the hard way"....its a bit like
QRP...... I think allocation is more political now that that frequency range
is in the hands of a private company.

Sadly 136 was decimated when 500k opened up and possibly because 500k was
easier (10 times easier) .......73kHz  is 4 times harder than 136k. So it
wont increase activity but it would be somewhere different to play for those
who like a challenge....as LFer always have. "Everybody" moved to 136 when
it opened not only because it was easier it was also a band available in
other countries. We actually had to organise activity nights to get sigs on
73k.  Getting 73k was a UK "stop-gap" or "foot in the door" from a helpfull
regulatory authority and a forward thinking Society.

The RTTY station from Rugby in the middle of the band (73.6??)could probably
have been switched off if we had had the right contacts !! But we didnt
learn that until too late. That frequency was allocated to BT and I believe,
though I have no proof, that VT Comms probably made it (closure of NoVs) a
condition of them taking over the Naval contract from BT because the dating
is synchronous. I suspect that frequency was transfered to them. VTC have to
run efficiently and they wont fire up a 50kW 73.6kHz transmitter unless it
is really needed. There was no need for a "hot standby" at Rugby but it gave
the engineers something to play with....it must have been a bit boring
seeing 75 years of history slipping away beneath your fingers, as the
stations closed down.
(I dont think its VT Comms now they may have been merged since then)

It would be interesting to have an allocation again but dont hold your
breathe and remember the interferenc is even worse than 136.....a lot of TV
PSUs used to run at about 36kHz!! It you neighbour was out of the band on
136 he was probably all over 73 :-((

Alan G3NYK
Remember LF whatever the frequency stands for L(otsa) F(un)

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Stefan Schäfer" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, October 18, 2011 4:35 PM
Subject: Re: LF: LF reflector, since?


> Hi Alan :-)
>
> Am 18.10.2011 00:16, schrieb Alan Melia:
> > Hi Stefan what was even "cooler" is that we were told quite firmly by
the
> > "know it alls" that we would not get a signal out of our back gardens
with 1
> > watt!!
> Hehe i know ;-) Some reported to me from the early days, like DF8ZR,
> that this was the opinion of some in the beginning...
> >   Does that sound familiar??
> Hmmmm, maybe it was in February 2010? ;-)
> Then it was 857 km with 1.8 mW ;-)
> >   I was a "Johney come lately" I only joined
> > in the reflector in 2000 though I did experiment on 73kHz earlier,
though I
> > could never hear anything there for the local noise.
> Oh, a pity. I would like to try on 73 kHz with the 300m vertical and
> 500W in CW :-)
> > My special permission
> > (NoV) has gone into my "museum" :-))
> >
> If 73 kHz would be allocated to you still, what do you expect about the
> activity there, now?
>
> 73, Stefan/DK7FC
>
>