Topband: W1AW is staying put for now

[Jim Kearman]

W1AW 160-meter frequency change put on hold (Mar 1, 2006) -- QRX on that W1AW QSY! Maxim Memorial Station W1AW has rescinded recently announced plans to change its 160-meter CW frequency starting Monday, April 3 and will remain on 1817.5 kHz for the time being. The announced change to 1807.5 kHz was aimed at reducing the possibility of interfering with DX stations that have begun showing up in the vicinity of 1817.5 kHz. "Lately we have received more complaints about W1AW interfering with weak DX signals," said ARRL CEO and W1AW Trustee David Sumner, K1ZZ. "Some of these complaints were about key clicks, which set us on a quest to put the cleanest transmitter we could find on 160." With the key click problem on the way to resolution, it was decided nonetheless to move W1AW's 160-meter frequency lower in the band. "After what we thought was due diligence we decided that it made sense to shift below 1810 kHz," Sumner recounted, "since that is the lower band edge in Region 1 and
  would pretty much eliminate the conflict with DXers." Monitoring showed that 1807.5 appeared to be generally clear. "Unfortunately," Sumner continued, "we failed to pick up the fact that PSK31 operators appear to have adopted 1807 kHz as their 160-meter frequency, and we don't want to conflict with any established activity centers." 

Read more at http://www.arrl.org/

73,

Jim, KR1S
http://kr1s.kearman.com/