[Elecraft] ARRL RTTY Roundup

[Mike Fatchett W0MU]

30m was not used in the RTTY Round up.

Just where would you like the RTTY stations to go?

The ARRL band plans suggest...Suggest the following for normal everyday use.

3570-3600
7040, 7080-7125
10130-10140
14070-14095

The FCC allows USA hams to operate RTTY on the following frequencies.

3500-3600
7000-7125
10100-10150
14000-14150

It appears that all this RTTY activity is clearly within the rules.

The Roundup was for 24 hours and the RTTY operators used lots of bandwidth
that for the most part goes unused.

There are always a few hams that seem to think they own certain frequencies
and get upset when they are used by other amateurs for other purposes for
brief periods of time.

I guess the fun of the many have to be sacrificed for the few?

Riley Hollingsworth, Chief Counsel for the FCC, spoke at great lengths about
this type of attitude the last two years at Dayton.  I think you can find it
at the ARRL site or even on Youtube or other ham web pages.  It is worth the
few minutes of time to hear what he has to say.

The extra portions of the bands were for the most part RTTY free.  Many
amateur bands did not have any contest activity on them at all.  12, 17,
160, 60, 2, 6 etc.

There were plenty of CW signals to copy outside the RTTY areas.

I suspect your complaints are not targeted at just the RTTY crowd but
probably at contesting in general.  This same contesting that gets people to
use 10m at the minimums and utilizes a good portion of our bands on a
regular basis which helps keep our claims to these frequencies. This same
contesting group which is a huge buying force in Ham radio and a huge force
to bring on new ideas and rigs such as the K3.

RTTY is one part of the hobby and so is SSTV, QRP, SSB, AM, PSK etc.  If
contests are that troublesome find a non contest band or simply turn off
your radio for the weekend and mow the lawn etc.




On 1/7/08 8:40 AM, "WA7CS" <crstrode at charter.net> wrote:

> 
> After a week of building a new K1, I was anxious to try it out and get on the
> air.
> 
> Imagine my dismay when all I could hear was a racous cacaphony of RTTY
> splatter from 7.025 to 7.100.  Similarly 14.060 was also RTTY hell.
> 
> I was even pushed off of 10.130 (WARC) by an incessant RTTY "CQ TEST".
> 
> I wonder what drives the ritty boys to swamp the traditional CW bands and
> wipe out the QRP calling freqs - oh yes, now I remember, the ARRL has deemed
> CW as non-relevant.
> 
> Renewal of my ARRL membership is becoming less and less attractive.
> 
> WA7CS
> ARRL member since 1970
> ARRL EWA HF Awards Manager