In my study of the TX Noise produced by current transceivers, I noted
the significant advantage enjoyed by users of dirty rigs by pushing
other stations away from their TX frequency, and making it difficult (or
impossible) for stations to S&P near them. Consider the lineup of
hundreds of NA stations in the 15 kHz 160M JA window, and comparable
conditions from east coast to EU. One FTDX5000D burns five K3 channels;
one ICOM 7800,7700, 7600, burns three. I run a K3 and a Ten Tec Titan,
which is quite clean. I've established a run frequency for JA only to
run off by a guy with a dirty power amp 700 Hz away.
Competitors using these dirty rigs should pay the price competitively. I
propose a scoring penalty of 15% to the users of FTDX5000 and other
Yaesu rigs in that family (study ARRL data to understand why that's
valid), and 10% to users of IC7800, 7700, 7600. KE1B, who uses a 7600 to
drive a solid state amp, wipes out 10 kHz of whatever band he is on for
me on CW, more on SSB. I'm not a WRTC competitor, but K6XX is, and his
dirty TX hurts Bob worse than me. By contrast, Bob and I, with K3s and
tube amps, can work 500 Hz apart and barely know the other is there. And
Bob is three miles closer than KE1B.
Is this fair? I contend that with the right to run high power comes the
responsibility to produce the CLEANEST signal consistent with the state
of the art. K3 has established the state of the art, and preliminary
data from the mfr suggest that Flex 6000-series may be as good. Kenwood
TS590S is 10 dB worse, at a very modest price. I contend THAT is state
of the art, and that ICOM and Yaesu fail to meet it.
Yes, I'm saying that users of these dirty rigs need to replace them with
cleaner ones. In 2008, I sold a pair of loaded FT1000MPs at significant
loss to be replaced by K3s. I did this because I could see from specs
that I needed to do that to coexist with my neighbors. Before that, I
owned a pair of TS850s and K2s. All sold.
And remember -- this is ARRL's data, not mine. :)
From my days in the civil rights movement of the '60s and '70s -- "if
you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem!" I've
dumped my dirty rigs -- how about YOU?
73, Jim K9YC
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