As I have told a few people privately, I really don't know if there's an
official policy on 17 m. nets from any organization (ARRL & FCC). The guys I
talked to told me they tried meeting on 17 and got yelled at by a bunch of
stations who told them no nets allowed on 17. I for one can handle being
yelled at--hey it happened on 20 anyway--so maybe we should try it and see
what happens. A check of the arrl website did not reveal any no nets on 17
policy. Their online net directory lists the following on 17:
Net Name Frequency Local Days UTC Time Time Zone
Flying Boat Amateur Radio Society 18.155 Dy 1200-2300
HF pack, the HF Portable Group 18.1575 S 1630
OMISS Net 18.14 S, Sn 1900
This would make it seem like a 17 meter net is okay and I stand corrected.
Sorry for the confusion. There were probably a few ops who were trying to
save 17 for themselves since the phone portion isn't real big.
If you don't have a 17 m. antenna, try using a 15 m. one. The swr may be
about 3:1 but you can tune that down with a transmatch (238 is great) and as
long as you are not operating with 1500 watts on a long run of skinny coax
you should be okay. I used a 3:1 antenna on 17 with about 90' of 8U, 600
watts and a 238A in the shack and worked a lot of dx. You'll be surprised
at what you can do. (I eventually got on the roof and adjusted my antenna
down to 1.3:1 on 17 though.)
73,
Rob Atkinson
K5UJ
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