Wow, either I lived in the wrong part of the states or things are a lot
quieter in the north.
I lived in Oklahoma from 2007 until 2010 and mostly just operated 40m and a
few bigger contests.
I also was only on the air on weekends.
I found the band very crowded.
I never operated 160 in the states but I do remember 80m being wall to wall,
especially in the AM days.
Granted the upper bands are not so crowded, but here in Europe, 80 and 40
are very tight spaced.
I almost always run my Eagle with 1.8 kHz on SSB and on CW usually 100 or
200 Hz.
Of course our low bands are smaller than your bands are. Maybe that's why
they are more crowded.
On the licensing bit, nearly every ham I know here in Germany also has a
stateside call sign.
It's kind of a "in" thing to do. That also inflates the numbers.
73 - Rick, DJ0IP/NJ0IP/G5BMH
(Nr. Frankfurt, Germany)
-----Original Message-----
From: TenTec [mailto:tentec-bounces@contesting.com] On Behalf Of Rob
Atkinson
Sent: Friday, December 04, 2015 12:36 PM
To: tentec@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [TenTec] TenTec Digest, Vol 156, Issue 4
>Our bands are way more crowded than they were back in the 70s, the days of
the Triton IV.
>Far more hams have amplifiers than back then.
>Simple crystal filters won't cut it. They lack the steep skirts of the DSP
filters.
I see the complete opposite at least in North America. The level of
activity on average on HF is much less than it was 40 years ago. Back then
160 m. was wall to wall at night. 80 m. cw was jammed. You
could not find a clear frequency in the evening on 75. There is a
myth based on the number of licensees but the total includes SKs, VHF ops,
EmComms, paper hams, cyber hams, one day wonder test takers on a lark,
astronauts, XYLs who now operate cell phones, and many other vestigial hams
and when you subtract all of these, you are down to maybe at most 50,000
operating active HF hams.
Now, even QRMtests on weekends don't take out the whole band like they
used to. And the sidewalks get rolled up at around 9 p.m. Tune
around late and there's almost nothing.
I operate mostly now with receivers from the 1940s and 1950s. No
filters but IF cans. Maybe a ceramic filter in the 75A-3. No
problems. The problem with making and selling a simple set is that
it would be impossible to buy production quantities of parts, assemble here
in the US, and sell at a price competitive with every vintage rig at any
hamfest flea market. Sit down and make a rough list of needed parts, go
looking on Mouser and other vendors and add up the cost.
add in labor and other overhead and you will quickly see it won't fly.
73
Rob
K5UJ
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