[CQ-Contest] How blatant can you get?

[Tom W8JI]

> I fully agree that prevention of excessively wide signals rather then 
> power
> control is the way to go.
> What I would argue with is that proving it would be easy. My noise level
> jumps by 5 S units across the entire band whenever my neighbor pushes PTT
> just because of the wide band noise his equipment radiates. But someone 
> 1000
> miles away says that my neighbor's signal does not occupy more bandwidth
> then it should.


That's a local problem that you and your neighbor can work out. Most people 
try to fix things as soon as they are aware if them.

At a distance though, problems hurt all of us.

My point is simple but important:

1.) If you see signals 60 over nine, you probably use too much receiver 
gain. I see people here do that all the time for no reason.

For example, on 40 meters my antennas are very good. Full gain is only 
needed in the middle of the day. When the band is "open", I turn the preamp 
off and attenuator on until background just moves the meter. Many operators 
turn the attenuator off, and preamp on, and background noise in my very 
quiet location shows up as S7 or higher!! Of course some signals pin the S 
meter.

2.) Decibels are decibels. We spend too much time picking small grains of 
fly waste out of pepper. I don't care in the least if someone runs 1300 
watts or 1700 watts in a 1500 watt class, and 1501 watts is laughable. 
Anyone thinking anyone can measure power that close, or it makes any 
difference, needs to look at how meters and dB work. A Bird 43 meter is 
lucky to be within 150 watts at 1500 watts, and when we measure power 
reflected power subtracts from forward power.

3.) If you look at most complaints, they are "running high power ruins the 
band". Bandwidth is the real complaint. That can come from both ends. If we 
want to fix that, we should have a class on properly tuning amplifiers or 
how to run the radio's preamplifier or attenuators.


I'm sure common sense rubs some people the wrong way. Complaining or tearing 
some one down is a special contest within contesting.  :-)

73 Tom