[UK-CONTEST] Digital modes and band plans.

[brian coyne]

I had a play around in the Russian DX Contest at the weekend on the cw bands.
 
Anyone else who did and operated on 40 & 20 mtrs cannot fail to have noticed a great amount of RTTY or similar activity going on. I see this am from the 3830 reports there was a BARTAG contest running concurrently.
 
Whether this was bad planning by one or other of the organisers or is an annual clash I don't know but it caused mutual frustration. The RDX is now one of the worlds busiests events. On 20mtrs, due to higher bands being mainly closed, cw effectively had only the bottom 60/65 khz of the band to accommodate thousands of stations. I noted that rtty were operating as high as 14120 at times.  40 mtrs was very tough, cw had only the bottom 35khz of the band. Because the RDX is CW/SSB the RTTY boys had only 5 khz to play with and were squeezed at both edges by the other modes. I had to sympathise with the musings of one 'General Class' cw operator who was unable to achieve anything on 40 because they can operate only above 7025.
 
There is no doubt that Digital mode operation is increasing at a rapid rate and am caused to wonder whether there is any planning ahead for re-allocation of frquencies by those involved with the amateur side of ITU. 
 
There is oceans of room on 80mtrs, likewise 15 & 10mtrs, we have the extra 100 khz on 40mtrs to be allocated but on 20mtrs, SSB has got to give. Do guys operate rtty on top band? I don't know but guess they will want the full set for DXCC.
 
Any thoughts anyone?
 
Brian 5B4AIZ.