[Lowfer] Sloppy drifter on top of my signal?

[Lyle Koehler]

Remember that "high power" on LF is still only a couple of watts of ERP,
which is flea power by HF standards. A 2-watt station 70 miles away should
not be a problem, unless it's *very* close in frequency to a weak signal I'm
trying to copy. A few years ago, there were GWEN stations with truly huge
and very wideband signals that totally clobbered anything below 175 kHz.
Despite that, I could copy KRY on 175.4 kHz almost any night during the
winter. We're only talking about a 20 to 25 dB increase in signal above what
a good LowFER installation can radiate at the 1-watt level. That sounds like
a huge amount, but theoretically it is about 4 "S" units, which would bring
Mike's signal from S5 to S9. Yeah, I know, most receiver S meters run 3 to 4
dB per S unit rather than the alleged standard of 6 dB. Anyway, with
moderate care at the transmitting end to reduce spurious signals such as
"key clicks", a separation of 2 kHz between "high power" stations and
LowFERs would be more than adequate. Somehow the European hams manage to get
by with only 2.1 kHz of *total* band space on LF, so with 30 kHz to play
with, we really shouldn't have a problem.

I think it would be a good idea to adopt a "band plan" whereby Part 5
operations are confined to 175 kHz and below. However, if Mike *did* decide
to put a Part 5 beacon on 185.3026 kHz, it would make it somewhat more
advisable for me to listen elsewhere on the band than it is now with his
1-watt beacon there. Not necessarily a bad thing -- there are other LowFER
signals to look for besides the ones at the "watering hole" that I have
already copied repeatedly.

Lyle, K0LR