[AMRadio] cw

[Donald Chester]

I like the idea of vintage CW but it doesn't have to be limited to 
novice speed sending. There is supposedly a vintage CW hang-out on 80m 
around 3550 but all the activity I hear seems to be run of the mill 
stuff with the usual plastic radios.

I think a better 40m frequency would be somewhere in 7060-7100. There is 
rarely any kind of activity there at all except for an occasional 
digital buzz and a Spanish speaking slopbucketeer. 7100-7125 is often 
filled with foreign SSB and an occasional broadcaster.

I wish  the FCC would extend the phone band down to 7100, and then all 
the countries agree to a band plan that would put RTTY and other digital 
modes somewhere  up around 7080-7100, and that CW ops would agree to 
spread out a little more. As it is, they are mostly all clustered down 
in 7000-7040 or so, RTTY, cw, data and all, with a wide swathe of 
under-used frequencies from 7060-7125, while the phone bands may be 
congested to the hilt.

I do hear a few CW sigs in the vicinity of 7060-80 at times, usually in 
the  clear enough that you could copy them OK with an S-38. The 
inefficiency in the way 40m frequencies worldwide are presently used, 
since the broadcasters mostly moved out of 7100-7200, is ridiculous.

Don