[UK-CONTEST] Ultra Wide CW and CQ 160m SSB

[Roger Parsons]

1. Ultra Wide CW

I know an easy way to generate this....

Many of the JA rigs use plastic trimmers in the VCOs,
and coat them with some form of wax. After a due
period some deterioration sets in and the capacitors
become noisy, and so the transmission has LOTS of
phase noise. Icom at least have a description of this
on their web site. It can be quite simply cured by
replacing the capacitors with ceramic equivalents. Bit
of a pain getting into the VCO compartment but
otherwise easy.

I'm not suggesting this is the reason for all of these
signals, but guarantee it is for some of them. It can
also account for those same wideband CW stations being
deaf, as the phase noise affects the receiver as well.

2. CQ 160m SSB 'DX' Contest

I don't know what this contest sounded like in Europe,
although I can make a good guess. Over here it was
domestic splatter from end to end of the band. No
possibility of DX contacts. Band plan was totally
ignored. As the 'international' part of the band is at
most 1830-1850KHz, seems to me that SSB contests
should not take place on 160m!

73 Roger
VE3ZI/G3RBP


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