[CQ-Contest] Frequency owners

Tue Aug 23 00:06:05 EDT 2005

Ken,

I had a similar experience on 14.292. Found a clear spot about 292.5, asked 
if the frequency was in use for 30 seconds, heard nothing and started CQing.
About 25 minutes later, Barney Fife showed up and informed me that I was 
QRMing the Maritime Mobile (pinhead) Net on 290! I asked why he had not 
responded to my "QRL?" earlier and whether he understood the function of the 
IF PBT knob on his rig. Of course this ushered forth a torrent of epithets 
about the evil scourge of contesting and threats to wreak the wrath of 
Charlie down upon my obnoxious 100 watt QRM machine which, apparently was 
trashing the band for tens of kilohertz up and down the band.

Not wishing to continue this clever, but useless,  repartee with Officer 
Fife, I decided to QSY down the band to the first available clear spot. 
Found one at 287.2. Thinking 2.8 kilohertz below the supposed net should 
have been sufficient I attempted to resume my NAQP efforts. I should add 
here that up to this point I'd heard nothing but some sporadic rag chewing 
on 290.

You know the rest. After a few minutes Sheriff Taylor came down and informed 
me that I was QRMing the above mentioned net and that if I didn't cease he 
and Floyd the Barber were going to beat me severely about the head, take my 
boomset, tear up my license and throw me in the Mayberry slammer! I told him 
maybe that sort of talk worked with Otis, but it wasn't going to work on me. 
QRZ....

So, the bottom line appears thus:

The 20 Meter "Maritime Mobile Nets" apparently have special FCC 
authorization to operate exclusively at frequencies every 10 kilohertz 
across the band.

This authorization is effective even in the absence of natural disasters, 
ie, hurricanes, tsunamis or other threats to maritime navigation and safety.

3 kilohertz wide "guard bands" must be maintained on either side of such 
Federally mandated assigned carrier frequencies.

Receiver features like IF passband tuning, IF and audio filters and VFOs are 
to be avoided at all costs.

I'm not sure these clowns could copy health and welfare traffic if it were 
hand delivered on printed pages with really big letters.

One other memorable "highlight" of this NAQP SSB was the KF6 who gave me a 
signal report of "539" after his exchange...so I guess that means he knows 
what CW is.

CU on the bands,

73,

MSW

Mark S. Williams
K9GX
Elizabeth, IN
k9gx at n4gn.com

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Kenneth E. Harker" <kenharker at kenharker.com>
To: "CQ Contest" <cq-contest at contesting.com>
Sent: Monday, August 22, 2005 3:29 PM
Subject: [CQ-Contest] Frequency owners

>     On Saturday in the NAQP, I spent at least two hours CQing on 14.260 
> MHz.
> A little after 0130 UTC, someone came on frequency and "informed" me that 
> I
> was operating on the IOTA frequency, and that I was interfering with one 
> or
> two active IOTA DXpeditions who would rather be using this frequency,
> and could us contesters be so kind as to keep just this one frequency 
> clear,
> seeing as how it is the IOTA frequency after all, and I wasn't on an
> island, blah, blah, blah....  He was reasonably polite and all, even gave
> a callsign, but of course he was taking like 90+ seconds to make his 
> point,
> and I decided that, even though I had really good rate on that band, it 
> was
> time to be CQing on 40M anyway, so I left him to argue with himself for 
> who
> knows how much longer.  Checking 14.260 later on with the second radio, I
> never heard anyone else using that frequency, but maybe that was because
> signals of adjacent activity that moved in around it made it just as 
> unusable
> as if I had been there all along.
>
>     Looking up this IOTA business on the web, I find that these people
> think they own no fewer than fifteen (15) frequencies on the HF ham bands.
> What utter hubris!
>
>     I also at one point on Saturday heard some station giving someone on
> 14.298 MHz grief about how the Maritime Mobile Net had been on 14.300 MHz
> for over 40 years, blah, blah, blah - of course, when I tuned up to 14.300
> MHz, there's NOBODY there!
>
>     Can someone tell me, is there any special interest group in ham radio
> today that _doesn't_ think it owns a frequency on 20 meters phone?
>
> -- 
> Kenneth E. Harker WM5R
> kenharker at kenharker.com
> http://www.kenharker.com/
>
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