[Lowfer] 160 - 175 KHz USE

[JD]

::: I hear that everyone avoided the low end because military was doing 
something there.  Is that still a problem?

Nope.  GWEN reached the end of its useful (?) life in 1999.  It was 
more-or-less devised in the mid-80s*, reached its maximum nuisance value to 
LowFERs in the mid-90s, and mercifully did not survive beyond the end of the 
decade.  While groundwaves at LF may be relatively immune to long-term 
disruption from nuclear detonations, it was eventually realized that even 
comparatively hardened 299 foot towers radiating those waves would not fare 
so well.  Some of the sites have since been converted to DGPS facilities, 
while others have been dismantled entirely.

Of course, with the Internet able to promulgate conspiracy sickness 
throughout the world almost as fast as shortwave radio can spread the 
delusions of false prophets, the spirit of GWEN has not gone away.  It 
lingers in the fevered brains of wackos the world over as somehow tied to 
HAARP, GPS, and even digital TV transmission as part of the government's 
enormous network of mass mind control.  But so far as actually hearing a 
peep out of them over the air, you won't.  Or at least, you _think_ you 
don't hear anything...maybe that's only because the mind control works so 
well. ;)

(* Now, recall I said "more-or-less devised in the mid-80s."  That's when 
the contract was awarded for implementing the project in the form many of us 
remember.  However, some of us in broadcasting had been approached in the 
late 70s by the government to have our sites included in a network of 
automated military LF communication relays that sure sounded an awful lot 
like what became GWEN.  The sites they were apparently most interested in 
were surveyed and studied in some detail.  Nothing came of it at that time, 
however, and when the "real" program got underway in the next decade, the 
chosen sites were farther apart and not co-located with civilian 
facilities.)

Civilian and civil users, though, have not entirely abandoned thoughts of LF 
for emergency communication.  I see on the Web that Niagara ARES even calls 
their exploratory program "Ground Wave Emergency Network."  And, look for 
word in the August LOWDOWN about how a major city is eyeing LF as a 
possibility for linking fire and rescue stations with each other after a 
major disaster.  But as of this time, the low end of 1750 meters has no 
military data traffic, and only the occasional Part 5-licensed activity. 
The European LW broadcast stations mostly have that region to themselves on 
cold winter nights.  :)

John