[Lowfer] Last Season for Lowfers?

[Bob Roehrig]

On Mon, 8 Jul 2002, John Davis wrote:

> You may also be aware from some of the comments filed with the FCC already
> that there are licensed hams who want to keep 1750m as it is, because it is
> more challenging than the ham band will be.

I fail to understand why licensed hams would be against having a band at
160-190 kHz. Look at the present activity that shows up on this list.
Everyone seems to be crowded within a very narrow portion of the band that
is using it now. My comments to the FCC suggested setting aside a 10 kHz
wide area of it as a ham band.

(soap box mode on)
As for the FCC not granting a ham band in the 1700 meter area,
the comments that there would be interference to "commercial users" is
ridiculous in that by definition in part 15, these services are NOT
protected anyway. For anyone (such as PLC's) to use this spectrum for any
critical application is absurd unless they take careful measures to avoid
receiving interference. There were over 100 GWEN sites running kilowatts
of power in this spectrum and there are no known cases of interference to
any of these other users.
(Soap box mode off)

> As for beacon activity, no, I can't see that going away at all.  Remember,
> most 1750m LowFER beacons operate unattended--something which is not
> permitted at HF and lower frequencies in the ham bands.  Beaconing at 2200m
> will need to be a human-controlled activity, most of it probably on a
> scheduled basis.

I totally agree. I really see no point to low power beacons on 2200
meters anyway when the 1700 band is available for that.

> There'll still be a place for our traditional LowFER
> beaconing at 1750m (if the Part 5 licensees leave any room for it:).

The current part 5 experimental license under WC2XSR only allows operation
on one frequency - 166.5 kHz. There is one other part 5 licensee that is
on another frequency occasionally.

                    73        Bob Roehrig        K9EUI
                    Aurora University Telecom/IS dept.
                    630-844-4898   broehrig@aurora.edu