[Laser] Changes to ARRL VHF contest rules

[James Whitfield]

Tim

I think we should be careful about trying to interpret what this means until 
the full text of the new rule(s) are available.

To be specific about your comment, I do not see that it places any burden on 
LEDs at all since (apparently) the wording is specific to "laser power" 
being limited to  5mW.

If there is any guide from history, there will not be any technical values 
to the specification, such as bandwidth to understand what is 
"monochromatic".  For now it would seem that lasers and LEDs are acceptable, 
though it would seem to exclude "white" LEDs and multicolored sources.

James
 n5gui



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tim Toast" <toasty256 at yahoo.com>
To: <laser at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Wednesday, July 21, 2010 2:12 AM
Subject: Re: [Laser] Changes to ARRL VHF contest rules


hi James and all

>From that little bit of info, it sounds like they are going to
declare LEDs to be monochromatic sources (like lasers). To me,
this sounds like they are going to clarify "coherent" to mean
"monochromatic" and, by including LEDs in the description,
further define "monochromatic" as being about 50 nm spectral
bandwidth or less.

I don't see any problem with that by itself, but the low power
restriction is kind of strange...that's new isn't it? It seems to put an 
unfair burden on LEDs and lasers. As long as there are not any eye-safety 
issues, why have a power limit so low? I hope that is some sort of "per 
square cm" thing and not a blanket "output" power.



--- On Tue, 7/20/10, laser-request at mailman.qth.net 
<laser-request at mailman.qth.net> wrote:
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2010 14:52:48 -0500
> From: "James Whitfield" <n5gui at cox.net>
> Subject: [Laser] Changes to ARRL VHF contest rules
>
> Posted on the ARRL website this afternoon is an item about
> the ARRL Board of Directors meeting. The details were
> not provided and are expected to be in a more in depth
> report in a few days along with the official minutes.
>
> The specific item that I thought might be of interest here
> reads:
>
> " ... clarified the VHF rules to allow
> monochromatic sources ( such as laser or LED ) to
> count for contest credit, as long as the laser power is less
> than 5 mW; ... "
>
>
> I for one, am interested to see what the details are and
> what this will mean as far as encouraging more
> experimentation and activity in the optical realm.
>
>
> Best wishes.
>
>
> James
>  n5gui
>





______________________________________________________________
Laser mailing list
Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/laser
Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
Post: mailto:Laser at mailman.qth.net

This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html