[Elecraft] FCC 60m Band Change Rules Published InFederalRegister On 03 February 2012 - Correction

[Sandy]

Firstly, if you read the Summary of the R&O, it specifically states that for 
FSK emission designator is: 60H0J2D.  60 Hz being the bandwidth of the PSK 
emissions.  Under ideal conditions, I would suppose that about 1.5 khz of 
space would be usable at least with a normal SSB transceiver on PSK-31.  If 
the tones are much below 0.5khz you run into some distortion that seems to 
prevail on some transceivers and cause spurious signals, ditto above 2 khz. 
No doubt some rigs might work OK, some might not.  Still several 
simultaneous QSO's could be accommodated in say a 1.5 =2 khz bandwidth with 
no problem if there wasn't a "Power hog" trying to outdo everyone else on 
the channel.  One MUST be a "Good neighbor" and not run excessive power 
(even under the 100w PEP ERP requirement) in order for everyone to have his 
QSO with adjoining stations operating.  A "normal" RTTY station would be 
much broader than allowed by the emission designator.  PSK-31 can be a very 
delightful and reliable mode but one "Lid" can wreck a whole band of PSK 
channels using 2 khz of band space.  97.307 specifically assigns the 60H0J2B 
bandwidth designator in the addition/revision rules in the Federal Register 
for part 97.  So it seems that PSK-31 WOULD be able to use more than one 
QSO in the channel space allotted  per channel as long as there wasn't any 
spurious "crud" outside or inside the assigned channel.  Most of the 
waterfall displays have frequency calibrations which can be very close if 
one sets up his transceiver's frequency correctly.  The space used by each 
user of PSK-31 is limited to what the "emission designator" specifies and 
not the 2.8 khz bandwidth as is specified for PACTOR data.  Being much 
narrower than PACTOR several PSK-31 co-users should be possible per channel.

For CW the R&O also says the CW signal will be 1.5 Khz above the suppressed 
carrier frequency used by the USB mode and one would assume that it would 
have to be within + or - 75 Hz of that center frequency.  This would pretty 
much limit each channel to one CW QSO per channel at any one time. 
(emission designator for CW is: 150HA1A)

Just an observation.  We will find out what happens when March 5th comes and 
the new emissions are tried out.  There probably WILL be some growing pains 
and also "newbies" who don't understand the problems that will pop up in 
"channelized" spectrum space in ham radio.

I'm looking forward to operating both CW (and PSK-31 eventually when I get 
my interface for the FT-990 xcvr built)   It should be fun and very useful 
having these additions to just voice modes on 60 meters!

73,

Sandy W5TVW


-----Original Message----- 
From: Rick Bates
Sent: Friday, February 03, 2012 9:14 PM
To: 'Sandy'
Cc: elecraft at mailman.qth.net
Subject: RE: [Elecraft] FCC 60m Band Change Rules Published 
InFederalRegister On 03 February 2012 - Correction

Hi Sandy,

If I read it correctly, we can use RTTY, Pactor and PSK modes (using USB if
AFSK) and are limited to 2.8 KHz.  It said we were NOT limited to those
modes for data as it would suppress experimentation.

Since PSK is usually sound card based, keeping everything within the
required 2.8 KHz means there will be less space (than say 14.07 MHz) for
shared channel use.

The one caveat I see is if one uses the FSK (or PSK in a K3) mode of the
radio.  You have to know if it is displaying the suppressed carrier
frequency OR is it displaying the MARK frequency and adjust accordingly?

For CW, use the channel center frequency (up 1500 Hz from the suppressed
carrier frequency).

Comments?

Rick WA6NHC

-----Original Message-----
From: Sandy

Hey guys!

I am planning on trying CW for the first time on 60 meters on the new
channel 3 on 5358.5.  Just hope the PACTOR stuff doesn't jump on that
channel and "claim" it.

It looks like there isn't ANY "normal" RTTY authorized, only PSK31.  It
would be hard to run "normal" RTTY with only a 60 Hz. bandwidth.

73,

Sandy W5TVW



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