[RTTY] 40M RTTY band plans

[Rudy Bakalov]

Tim,
There is one limitation of the RBN data to keep in mind- the vast majority of RTTY skimmers have narrow segments due to the significant CPU requirements to process wide segments. I have set mine to the following, precisely to see what happens during contests like CQ WPX and CQ WW RTTY:
RttySegments=3523000-3610000,7020000-7105000,14040000-14145000,21040000-21155000,28040000-28182000

Rudy N2WQ
      From: Tim Shoppa <tshoppa at gmail.com>
 To: Rudy Bakalov <r_bakalov at yahoo.com> 
Cc: "rtty at contesting.com" <rtty at contesting.com>
 Sent: Sunday, February 7, 2016 10:12 AM
 Subject: Re: [RTTY] 40M RTTY band plans
   
Rudy, that's a brilliant set of graphs. Thank you so much! I'm going to see if I can do the same use reversebeacon data for other major RTTY contests.
For BARTG I'm not surprised that the EU band plan is adopted, given what the "B" in BARTG stands for.
But in ARRL RTTY RU I'm surprised we don't let the EU guys CQ below 7050 where they like to be while the NA guys go above 7080. Instead there's a bunch of NA guys below 7050 CQ'ing and making it hard to work the EU. Not a good way to make RTTY RU more popular in EU (and I would like it to be more popular in EU).
Now, in CQ WW RTTY, all gloves come off :-)
Correct me if I'm wrong... in CQ WW RTTY we spread out all the way to 7100. While the EU stuff tends to be lower, I worked a lot of EU RTTY above 7080 in CQ WW RTTY. So I'm thinking it's tradition or avoiding phone QRM that the EU's like to stay lower, that they don't actually have rules prohibiting RTTY above 7080? Maybe in a super major RTTY contest like CQ WW RTTY the phone guys are avoiding 7080-7100 but in the less major contests like ARRL RTTY RU there is not that critical mass to drive phone out of that segment?
Tim N3QE
On Sun, Feb 7, 2016 at 9:58 AM, Rudy Bakalov <r_bakalov at yahoo.com> wrote:

Here's where the stations are, based on RBN data from BARTG
https://public.tableau.com/views/BARTGRTTYSprint2016/FrequencybyContinent?:embed=y&:display_count=yes&:showTabs=y

Rudy N2WQ
      From: Tim Shoppa <tshoppa at gmail.com>
 To: rtty at contesting.com 
 Sent: Sunday, February 7, 2016 9:48 AM
 Subject: [RTTY] 40M RTTY band plans
  
Bill writes:
> This anomaly on 40 is a result of the JA band restrictions
> which were in place for many years. The JAs were limited to
> 7030-7045 so that's where everyone congregated, even when
> working non JAs.

I can certainly understand that perspective from the west coast. But as I
see it from the east coast, the reason is that in EU the 40M phone segment
starts at 7050 or 7060, and all the EU guys like to be below 7050 :-)

40M band plan has improved in recent years, as SW broadcasters move up or
out. Still it's very common for 7080 region to be littered with phone stuff
from Europe or South America (incidentally... most of them not ID'ing...
just saying I'm pretty sure it's not legal ham activity.)

In CQ WW there's enough RTTY activity that activity spreads out all the way
up past 7080 to 7100 easy.

A real highlight of my RTTY RU 40M experience, given that it happens near
winter solstice, is when I'm calling CQ on 40M well before my sunset and
work JA's (presumably long path). That's a thrill. So I'm real glad there's
been recent improvements to JA 40M RTTY segment.

I'm actually surprised that I had so many QSO's below 7050 in RTTY RU yet
there is not a whole lot of EU in RTTY RU. (Certainly not like CQ WW where
there is a whole lot of EU activity on 40M and well every band!). Don't get
me wrong, I love working the EU guys in RTTY RU, but I'm surprsied that we
"adopt the EU band plan" in RTTY RU despite the fact that EU is small
compared to domestic stuff in RTTY RU. You might think a more rational
approach, would be to let the EU guys CQ below 7050, and we go down there
to work them, while we are CQ'ing higher up. Instead all the NA guys go
CQ'ing below 7050 and make it dang hard to work the EU guys who genuinely
have a reason to be dowh there.

80M is still less than optimal with EU able to do RTTY above 3600 but not
USA. So in the really big RTTY contests we end up going below 3580 which
starts some frequency fights with other digital modes in the 3570-3580
region.

Tim N3QE
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