Topband
[Top] [All Lists]

Topband: Radiolocation beacon has QSY'ed

To: topband@contesting.com
Subject: Topband: Radiolocation beacon has QSY'ed
From: "Donald Chester" <k4kyv@hotmail.com>
Date: Wed, 09 Nov 2005 00:31:21 +0000
List-post: <mailto:topband@contesting.com>
The strong radiolocation beacon that suddenly popped up a few days ago on 
1948 kHz has moved to 1952.1.

It has been reported with a consistently strong signal throughout eastern N 
America from New England and Ontario, to as far west as Colorado, and it is 
very strong in the southeast.

Radiolocation is allocated as the primary service on 1900-2000 and amateur 
operation is secondary, so the signal is probably legal and nothing can be 
done about it.

With the decline in the use of 160m radiolocation due to the advent of GPS, 
the radiolocation band from 1700 to 1800 has many vacant frequencies.   They 
could have put this station there, where radiolocation is allocated 
exclusively, rather than on a frequency where they have to share with 
amateurs.  The 1900-2000 radiolocation allocation was adopted to 
"reaccomodate" the beacons originally on 1600-1700 that were displaced by 
the expanded AM broadcast band.  Most of the beacons that were on the air 
back then have long ago gone dark.

Apparently, most of the members of this board are interested primarily in 
DX, and probably rarely listen that high in the band, but one thing to be  
concerned about is,  if this is the beginning of a widespread deployment of 
some new radiolocation system that could eventually crowd amateurs off the 
top end, then many of the phone stations now active above 1900 will move 
down below, increasing the congestion on 1800-1900 as well.

Of course, radiolocation beacons above 1900 kHz are nothing new, and 
hopefully this one is an isolated incident.

Don k4kyv


_______________________________________________
Topband mailing list
Topband@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/topband

<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>