[UK-CONTEST] CQWW 160 SSB

[Peter Day]

I'm responding to this even though I do not like the condescending tone 
of one or two of the email replies to my original post  ....

I had hoped for a constructive debate on the question of contest 
spectrum. All contesters should know that a majority of radio amateurs 
are not contesters and many of those I meet at clubs and on the air have 
a poor view of us when, to them, contests appear to hog the bands almost 
every weekend. That is their perception. Our job is to placate them and 
make every effort to be reasonable. We have a similar problem during the 
80m CCs when the SSB sessions wipe out the SSTVers around 3730kHz. I've 
heard some quite nasty arguments going on between contesters and SSTVers 
on that frequency ... it does no good for our own cause of encouraging 
more peopple to take up "radio sport" (sic).

On 28/02/2011 00:28, Gerry Lynch wrote:

> They were obeying the bandplan.  Go and read the bandplan.  Think about
> why they bandplan is written the way it is.

The IARU region 1 and RSGB bandplans I've seen clearly suggest a CW 
contest section finishing at 14060! I can't see why almost half of the 
20m band has to be taken up by a 48 hour CW contest in this way. Similar 
suggested contest zones are stated for the 40m band also. Most other 
contests (apart from CQWW ones) tend to stay within the generally 
accepted CW/SSB sections of the bands. I can't see what is wrong in 
clearly defining the upper and lower limits for particular contests 
rather than allowing a free for all across the whole of the spectrum 
permitted under one's licence. Just because we are legally entitled to 
use CW above 14.100 does not mean that we should do so in these high 
powered contests. A bit of give and take would go a long way to placate 
the non contesters. You're going to tell me of course that the numbers 
of entrants in the ARRL and CQWW contests are such that 100kHz isn't 
enough for the CW section. I don't accept that. In the few hours I 
played the contest, using 300-400Hz RX bandwidths on 20 metres, I quite 
easily found run frequencies that were clear of QRM.

> Anyway, was there anything wrong with the 225 kHz of 20m above 14.125?

The ARRL CW contest was spreading right up to 14.150 and the area above 
that was very cluttered with SSB. In any case it was impossible to get 
through to the two VKs that we could not copy them and to ask them to 
move to say 14.349!

> Anything wrong with sending a quick e-mail or text or instant message
> saying "118 and 125 covered with CW contest crud, try 14.310 +/- QRM"?

The simple answer to that is yes! The QSO I referred to is a daily 
G-UK-UA net in which there are often 5 to 8 stations, none of which sit 
glued to a computer screen watching the cluster or emails coming down 
all the time, unlike several on this reflector apparently :-) These guys 
are not DXers or contesters and therefore don't feel the need to have a 
computer right by their side all day long.

I'm the only one with a computer at the operating position but even I 
don't have emails dropping down every few minutes... I get around 150 a 
day as it is so I prefer one evening download a day! I could have sent 
them all an email of course but the rest of the net wouldn't have seen 
it until the following day.

You may ask why so low in the "phone band" for this net ... over several 
years we've tried everywhere else and this area is usually the most QRM 
free... certainly on weekdays. If I remember that there is a contest on 
I usually tell them all to forget the sked but this time I hadn't 
remembered. Neverthless, I can't remember ever being shoved off the band 
like this in previous ARRL CW or CQWW CW tests.

> What do you do if two non-contest QSOs are going on on .117 and .124,
> for example?

Obviously(!) we call higher or lower... we have a nominal freq of 14114 
but are always prepared to listen between 14112 and 14125. Unlike one 
who responded to my earlier email suggests, we certainly do not lay 
claim to any particular frequency.

> One's radio has a big tuning knob in the middle for a reason.

That's the kind of condescending and rather facetious comment I referred 
to at the start of my rant ...

I suppose you'd also say the same to a ragchewing RTTY op whose Sunday 
on 14090 was totally submerged in 599NY- 599400 cw exchanges. Where 
could he move to? ... he wouldn't have been popular above 14150!

As far as I'm concerned the matter is now closed .... we'll have to 
agree to differ ;-)

Peter G3PHO