[nrv-hams] Fun is coming

[Kay Craigie]

March 7-8 is the ARRL International DX Contest, phone edition. Operation
will be on 160, 80, 40, 15, and 10 meters, starting at 7 PM Friday night
local time and ending 48 hours later. The object of the contest is for
stations in the 48 contiguous states and the Canadian provinces to work
everybody else. Here's the link to the announcement with more info: 
http://www.arrl.org/news/there-s-a-place-for-you-in-the-arrl-international-d
x-phone-contest-march-7-8

Hawaii and Alaska count as DX entities and not as USA states for this one so
feel free to call them. Just don't call stations in other states or in
Canada. Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands are also fair game.

We send a signal report (always 59) and state/province abbreviation. The DX
sends the signal report and their power. It's usual for stations running a
kilowatt to say just "K" or "KW." 

We can make good progress towards DXCC this weekend. Lots of interesting DX
will be on the air.

We should take care to stay within the phone bands according to our license
class privileges.  That's easy, right? Just read the band chart. Well,
that's a good start but isn't the whole story on keeping legal. On 40 and
75, where we use lower sideband, keeping legal means setting the VFO no
closer than about 3 kHz to the *bottom* end of our phone segment.  On 10,
15, and 20 meters, where we use upper sideband, we should set the VFO no
closer than about 3 KHz from the *top* end of our  phone segment. 

For example, on 40 meters my Extra class phone band's bottom edge is 7125
kHz. I should set my VFO no lower than 7128 kHz. On 15 meters, my phone
band's top edge is 21450 kHz. I should set my VFO no higher than 21447 kHz.

Why's that? The bandwidth of a single sideband signal is a bit less than 3
kHz. Let's call it 3 kHz for the sake of convenience. On upper sideband,
most of the energy of my signal will be found above the VFO frequency. If I
set my VFO closer to the band edge than about 3 kHz from the top of my
privileges, some (or a lot) of my transmitted signal will be going outside
my privileges. In fact, because I'm an Extra, I'll be transmitting some
energy outside the ham bands -- a huge no-no. Similarly, on lower sideband,
most of the energy of my signal will be found below the VFO frequency. If I
set my VFO closer than about 3 kHz from the bottom of my privileges, some of
my signal will slop down into a segment where phone isn't allowed.

Our entire signal has to be within the limits of our operating privileges
and certainly entirely within the ham bands.

You'd be surprised how many hams who weren't, so to speak, born yesterday
don't know about SSB bandwidth and how to keep our signals where they
belong.

This principle also applies, by the way, to making sure we pick a frequency
that's far enough away from existing QSOs to avoid rudely interfering with
them when we call CQ.

73 - Kay N3KN