[CQ-Contest] prejudicial language

Tue Aug 21 14:43:16 EDT 2001

At 08:40 AM 8/21/2001 -0700, Jeffrey Clarke/KU8E wrote:
>I tend to agree that 160 is not really the place for a SSB DX contest
>but I guess it serves a purpose for those guys that don't do CW and
>maybe want to try to get their WAS. 
>
>Also, I am disappointed that the ARRL thinks that contesters "disrupt"
>the bands. Seems to me a contest encourages people to get on a band
>which might be considered not open. 

Disrupt may not have been an ideal choice of words but it isn't inaccurate.
The word can mean several things but one of them is:

        "to interrupt the normal course or unity of"

(from the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary at www.m-w.com)

You and KR6X seem to think there is some kind of vendetta against contesters implied in the 160m Band Plan report.   I respectfully think you and Leigh ought to spend more time on the air and less time picking a fight that isn't there.

The basic problem with contesting on 160 is that during most of the year, especially during high sunspot times, the band is not well-used, even in mid-winter, and contesting changes it considerably.   

On any evening (this is a W1 point of view) there are a dozen or so SSB and AM ragchewers scattered from 1850 to 2000, there are a handful of CW QSOs or CQs, mostly below 1840.   There sometimes are also a few weak DX stations to be heard - usually only worked by those with a KW and decent sized 160m antenna.   Count up the signals, in the course of an hour you might hear 50 different callsigns, many of them on the same frequencies in ragchews or calling a DX station one after the other.

So what happens on a contest weekend?   Let's pick the three with the most activity (again from a W1 perspective) - the ARRL 160 (CW) and the CQ 160 CW and SSB.    Note that they only happen on 3 of 52 weekends in a year.     In the CW weekends you'll find activity from 1800-1870 (I base this on actual data from several hundred stations in the 2000 ARRL 160m contest), and on the SSB weekend, activity goes from below 1820 to above 1900.   I haven't ever done the 160 SSB contest seriously, maybe someone else has some real data about the actual frequency usage.   Even more, the number of stations on the band on either mode jumps into the thousands.   It overwhelms any other activity that traditionally uses those frequencies.   Disrupt is another way to describe it.

The issue facing the 160m Band Plan Committee was how to reconcile several different things (not all listed here).   One was the irritating conflict between SSB ragchewers and DXers in some parts of the country (usually not W1) below 1840.   I say "irritating" because it tended to be mostly localized and never so terribly bad that people got really POed about it.  Another was the inadvertent conflict that came up when MFSK software came on the scene and used a European (Region I) recommendation to use 1838 KHz for digital.   A lot of 160 "newbies" were dropping in on a frequency used for a long time for DXing in the USA.    Add to that the general feeling by a significant number of people that formal band segmentation by the FCC to keep the wideband modes out of a portion of the band (like all of the other HF bands) was desirable.

The Committee wrestled really hard with each of the issues and finally settled on the band plan that was printed in September QST (without a lot of the associated details from the report), with a strong push to keep the wideband modes above 1840 KHz (LSB no lower than 1843).    

The problem with that solution is that it doesn't work well for CW contesting in the two big 160m CW contests.   The amount of CW activity just doesn't fit in the 1800-1840 area, especially if there is a DX Window (which I think there should continue to be) specified by the contest sponsors.   SSB activity in the USA (and for that matter, all of North and South America) can all fit above 1843.    CW activity in the ARRL and CQ 160m contests will disrupt (see definition above) the usual SSB and AM activity - as will SSB contesting disrupt the usual SSB and AM and CW on the CQ 160 SSB weekend.    Not unlike any other contest does on any other band - except few others take place in the both the traditional CW and SSB areas at the same time.   Disrupt does not mean that it's "bad" in the situation we're talking about, it means it's different.    It's also been going on for a lot of years, so it isn't going to go away because someone interprets "disrupt" as being something bad.

I'd be really happy if the CQ 160 SSB rules included a recommendation that in the USA and Canada stations should stay above 1843, and work stations below 1843 using split VFOs.   I'd be even happier if that's how it worked outside of contests as well.  About 15-20% of the CQ 160m SSB competitors are probably on this reflector and can have a large impact on whether the rules say that, and whether the actual operating follows that as well.   

As for a hard-and-fast FCC demarcation at 1840 with wideband modes above, it isn't impossible, but I think it's a long shot.   The 160M Band Plan Committee did suggest to the ARRL Board that be the course of action:

>> It is the Committee’s understanding that the FCC does not desire to consider any piecemeal approach to regulation, such as 160 meters subband rule making, changes to operating privileges, etc. It is also the Committee’s understanding that other efforts are underway, such as the Novice Reforming Committee, whereby at some point in the future such studies will be integrated together as a package and presented to the FCC for possible rule making. <<

>> It is strongly urged by this Committee, that the 160 meters band plan herein recommended be incorporated into that strategy and eventually proposed to the FCC for rule making. <<

The ARRL Board adopted the actual band plan (suggested frequencies) and took the rest of the report under consideration, as requested.   As to how it goes from here, it depends on how important it is relative to a lot of other things, and to how individual ARRL Board members feel about the issue.   If it's important enough to you, then you should not just be venting on cq-contest, you should be talking to your ARRL Director.  And, as several have indicated, the FCC is not inclined to segment bands any more than they are today - I've heard directly that from at least two different FCC officials.   

Hope I didn't get too scattered in my comments.  I just think we should all do a little less "tilting at windmills" and do a lot more to help teach people how to become better contesters, or to join in and contest with us in the first place.   We all seem to "know" why it is so much fun and so valuable a training tool, but not all that many of us seem to want to talk to those outside "our circle" and invite them in.

                        Back to net...
                                                -- Tom

=====
e-mail: k1ki at arrl.org   ARRL New England Division Director  http://www.arrl.org/
Tom Frenaye, K1KI, P O Box J, West Suffield CT 06093 Phone: 860-668-5444

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