[UK-CONTEST] Digital modes and band plans - BARTG Clash.

[G3VDB (Jim)]

> Whether this was bad planning by one or other of the organisers or is an
annual clash ....

I don't know either, but.....

I was a BARTG member from the late 60's to the late 70's (when I gave up the
hobby). The BARTG Spring HF contest was an annual event then though I can't
be specific that the weekend has always been the 3rd weekend in March. 

The 1977 event attracted 122 entries and 8 check logs from 59 countries; it
was described in the results as "a most successful event which has once
again been generally accepted as one of the major events of the RTTY
Calendar" 

Other regulars here were heavily involved in BARTG at the time and may have
more archival information on the event history.

[The bandwidth taken by the current high number of entries, its inefficient
use and disregard to bandplans gives me concern; I have to admit I was part
of the problem for a couple of hours, S&P between 14075 and 14110].
 
I have never heard of the Russian RDX Contest until this year. That is
probably my loss and reflects my interests :-))  

Jim
G3VDB

-----Original Message-----
From: uk-contest-bounces at contesting.com
[mailto:uk-contest-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of brian coyne
Sent: 23 March 2009 07:17
To: UK Contest
Subject: [UK-CONTEST] Digital modes and band plans.


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.


      
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