[UK-CONTEST] Extra 100KHz on 40M

[Ian White, G3SEK]

Colin G3PSM wrote:

 >Did you mean 'permitted ERP'?  I'd love to have my license stated in 
ERP,
 >especially if it was referenced to 26DBW into a 5 ele beam - think of 
the
 >power we could run on the LF bands!
 >
 >73 Chris G3SVL
 >Oops, well spotted Chris.   Should have read PEP.
 >
>ERP is mentioned in the BR68 but only on 136kHz and 431-432 MHz.
>
>Now there's a thought for the future.....

It's hard to imagine anything more ANTI-competitive than an ERP limit.

Maybe you guys weren't around on 50MHz when there was an ERP limit. You 
were allowed either good antennas or good power, but not both, so it was 
a total damper on doing your best.

Fortunately, most people simply ignored the ERP limit and got on with 
developing a good station. I say "fortunately" because the more people 
who used beams, the *less* power we radiated towards the countries that 
still had 50MHz TV! Thus the ERP limit was a failed regulation in every 
way. RSGB got the RA to drop it ASAP.

The only case where an ERP limit does work for us is on 136kHz, where it 
removes the normal power limit to compensate for the extremely poor 
antenna efficiency.


-- 
73 from Ian G3SEK