Dear Mal, Ken, LF Group,

G3KEV wrote:
> The band should be licensed for CW operators only so that they could recognize and read the CW  beacons and AVOID >them.

One does not need to be a morse code expert to realise there is a strong signal repeating  the same dots and dashes 24 hours a day on a particular frequency. One just needs a little common sense...

> Has OFCOM thought of this.  Neither should there be any amateur unattended BEACONS to jam the Primary user >Beacons even unintentionally.

Whether the transmission is a "manual" QSO or automated, or if an NoV for an unattended beacon was being applied for, the important thing for the amateur is to be aware of nearby NDBs and avoid transmitting on their frequencies - this is a matter of  observation and advance planning, not operating. If  a couple of amateurs are yakking away about the WX on a NDB frequency, in CW or any other mode, there is no way that the NDB will be able to break in at the end of one over and say "excuse me chaps, but there are aircraft trying to get a bearing on this frequency; would you mind QSYing - thank you so much"  ;-)

Think about this from the Primary User's point of view - if someone navigating an aircraft sets their ADF receiver to a particular beacon frequency and hears an assortment of amateur-generated morse code mixed up with the beacon ID, this is likely to cause confusion or error. So there is a strong argument for amateurs not to use morse code at all in this frequency range. It would be better to use totally different types of transmission that would not be confused with a NDB beacon signal.

Cheers, Jim Moritz
73 de M0BMU