Hi Alan,

Am 18.10.2011 22:36, schrieb Alan Melia:

Sadly 136 was decimated when 500k opened up and possibly because 500k was
easier (10 times easier) .......73kHz  is 4 times harder than 136k.

Ah, so 9 kHz is 230 times harder than 136k? What a hard live i have ;-)

  So it
wont increase activity but it would be somewhere different to play for those
who like a challenge....as LFer always have.

Totally agreed.

  "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.

And now the times of a foward thinking society is over?

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)

73, Stefan/DK7FC