Topband: ARRL Board Requests Member Comments About Digital Modes

[Mike Waters]

Thank you. I forgot that in Region 1 (essentially Europe, Asia, & Africa),
160m starts at 1810.

Here's a couple of thoughts for discussion:
- Since two-thirds of the world --including North and South America--
starts at 1800, why not consider region-specific band plans? Is digital
popular in other places?
 - How about 1840 to ~1845 for digital in lieu of --or even in addition
to-- below 1810?

As for bandwidth, here's what K1JT says about the significant bandwidth
advantages of JT9 vs. JT65:
"JT65 was designed for EME ... in contrast, JT9 is optimized for HF and
lower frequencies.  JT9 is about 2 dB more sensitive than JT65A while using
less than 10% of the bandwidth. ... A 2 kHz slice of spectrum is
essentially full when occupied by ten JT65 signals.  As many as 100 JT9
signals can fit into the same space, without overlap."
--From http://www.physics.princeton.edu/pulsar/K1JT/wsjtx.html

73, Mike
www.w0btu.com

On Mon, Mar 3, 2014 at 5:37 PM, Joe Subich, W4TV <lists at subich.com> wrote:

>
>  IMO, digital should go below 1810, AND it should preferably be a narrow
>> band mode such as the superior JT9 mode.
>>
>
> Unfortunately, "below 1810" is never going to fly because of the lack of
> access below 1810 in many countries.  Further, JT65 although wider than JT9
> is certainly less than 200 Hz and should not be a concern to users of other
> narrow bandwidth modes. ...
>