Topband: CQWW DX SSB and 160 Meter Band Plan - K4ZDH's Response

[Dinsterdog@aol.com]

Is K4ZDH stating he is going to allow this or not?  It seemed like a pretty 
basic question.  My guess is that if you operate below 1.843MHz, you can 
always use the arguement that you were looking for a clear frequency and did 
want to interfere with others-   I think I'm just going to bag any effort on 
160 contests this season involving SSB- 

>From yesterday's posting.........Ok, so lets say we hear a DX station calling 
CQ on CW below during a SSB contest, a juicy doulbe mult out of XE, then ask 
the guy on the same frequency, by going to SSB, to move up above 1.843MHz 
becuase his CW stinks as he would make a nice mult, do we get a letter? Or do 
we get a pat on the back for asking him to make the contact higher up on the 
band?  This was recently done for the purpose of a DX contact by a certain 
station that, as a post stated yesterday, was an avid supporter of the new 
band plan- 

This is really wierd.........I mean I want to comply here, but we have a 
contest coming up- I honestly, until it's official, I can't say I'm going to 
work split etc........I have a hard enough time hearing any mults outside the 
USA as it is- and I don't see hearing anything in a jammed band above 
1.843MHz with our east coast and west coast competition- so why compete at 
all for 2 mults that will take all night to get through to?

In many instances during the biggest contests of the year, gentlemen 
agreements are set aside for that day or weekend- This whole deal with the 
new volunteer band plan is still new, and I doubt if it's at the top of the 
list of stations outside the USA- Is there not room for compromise Mr. 
Hollingsworth to allow the new plan to get into the mainstream?

As for comments that running split is common in contests, I say yes and no- 
If you can get a clear frequency inside 3.775-3.800MHz and run stations 
simplex, it's a lot easier then runnning split-.  Running split is a result 
of available bandwidth in a contest, and I don't see it being the first 
option if you can find a clear simplex frequency-  

And respectively, I do not think the re-tuning issue is over stated.  It is 
easy to lose sight of bandwidth when you have 70KHz of bandwidth with your 
antenna, but I have lived through using shortened dipoles across roofs, and 
butternut HF2V verticals, and trying to tune these to cover split operations 
is not an easy task.  Do-able perhaps, but it is a pain- especially in winter 
environments.  And we lose bodies on the band over it-

With me, most internal tuners on my rigs, the TS940, IC756Pro, FT900 
etc....won't handle 160 very well.  I need a big fat external tuner.  Perhaps 
those with the ability to race in and out of your home, or use a relay etc, 
is an alternative.....but its a mess- I have been there and have done that 
when I tried to work JA's on 160 with backyard antennas running split- ugh-

And last but not least, can anyone out there really feel comfortable calling 
CQDX inside 1.830-35MHz even now as the DX window has been eliminated?  I was 
about to call an EI station last night on 1.833 after a station in Minnisota 
tried but then a W6 decided to call 1KHz below and screwed up my chance to 
work the 3-5 minutes of grayline I had to work this guy- I was upset but hey, 
it was within his rights, right? Or was it rude??

Not claiming to have the answers, but would like a formal set of laws over a 
volunteer plan- Writing my letter this weekend-

73  Paul  N0AH