[CW] FCC Actions - OOOOPS?

[scott mcmullen]

--- Donald Chester <k4kyv at hotmail.com> wrote:
> Many nights I have tuned across 80 m and heard zero activity between 3600 
> and 3700, even when condx were good and the phone bands completely occupied. 
> 10-15 years ago, the "cw" bands were filled with signals from one end to 
> the other.

You must listen at the wrong times; I check into the Texas CW Net many
nights at 3643 KHz. It meets twice nightly at 8pm and 10pm local time.
The Region 5 net meets at 3650 KHz. Most of the NTS high speed nets meet
in this area; the slow nets between 3675 and 3725 KHz.
 
I checked into the Kentucky Slow Net last night at 3722 KHz, to see if
I could make it with my QRP rig.

I often hear RTTY between 3600-3610 KHz.

The NTS nets have to be in spectrum available to General and Advanced
Class licensees to have the broadest participation possible.

> 
> The rules change was prompted by all that unused spectrum.  Counting the 
> number of cw and digital signals on the air at any one given time, except 
> during contests, all the digital and narrowband modes can easily fit into 
> 3500-3600 without congestion, even when all those digital signals are on the 
> air.  If our narrowband modes use 300-500~ of bandwidth, and we use 
> receivers with appropriate bandwidth filters, we don't need 1.5 kHz of 
> spacing between narrowband signals.

It's not unused spectrum. That's a fallacy.

> 
> We could easily live with 3500-3600 kHz digital/cw, and 3600-4000 all modes 
> including phone and other wider band emissions, open to General thru Extra.  
> Let the coded Techs and Novics have cw privileges 3500-3600.

I disagree.

73
Scott
W5ESE


Scott McMullen, W5ESE
http://www.geocities.com/scottamcmullen
scottamcmullen at yahoo.com
Dripping Springs, Texas

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