Topband: ARRL Band Segmentation

[Bill Tippett]

K0CKD wrote:
 >As an example, the first 8 countries on the list are as follows
1AØ - 1S - 3A - 3B6,7 -3B8 - 3B9 - 3C & 3CØ THESE COUNTRIES ARE ALLOWED
OPERATION FROM 1830 TO 1850 FOR BOTH CW & SSB. One can clearly see that
immediately if we segmented 1800- 1840 as CW ONLY, we cover up 10 KHz of
their 20 KHz spectrum.

         Dennis, I've heard this argument many times before but it has a few
flaws in it.

1.  How many DX contacts do you think are made from those areas using SSB?
Answer - not many.  The recent 3B9C operation probably made ~20 QSO's with
NA out of several hundred on CW, and most if not all of those were made
using a TX frequency of 1843 listening up 5, so what's the problem?  I would
also bet that most of these SSB QSO's were duplicate QSO's by CW DX'ers who
have the RX capability to hear weak signals.  (Note to Eric K3NA, how about
cross-checking your SSB QSO's to see how many were NOT duplicate contacts on
CW previously?)  Dennis, if you are truly concerned about intercontinental DX
QSO's, rather than using lack of unified allocations as a convenient excuse
to not segment, why is it that most DX'ers on 160 are strongly in favor of
segmentation?  The logic of using global frequency alignment as an excuse
doesn't make sense to me if most of the very ones who supposedly would benefit
(i.e. DX'ers) are in FAVOR of segmentation.  I don't have the final stats, but
the following page shows only 25 of 1055 total 3B9C QSO's were made on SSB at
61K total QSO's into the expedition.  Again, perhaps Eric will provide us the
final 160 stats.

http://www.fsdxa.com/3b9c/update-24-mar.html

2.  ALL 3 IARU Bandplans recommend no SSB bandwidth below 1840.  Any countries
you cite showing SSB allocations below 1840 are contradictory to their own
IARU Bandplan.  http://www.iaru-r2.org/hf_e.htm

         Let's not lose sight of the forest for the trees.

                                                 73,  Bill  W4ZV

P.S.  I sometimes wonder how accurate your frequency allocations are...
of the countries you listed, I know that 1S, 3B6/7, 3B9 and 3CØ have all
recently used CW below 1830.  And who is the governing body for 1S which
is claimed by BY, 3W, 9M6, and possibly others?