My use of the band is mostly based upon propagation and, as you pointed out, minimal competition with other stations. This is particularly important with non-cw digital modes since they are typically much wider than cw and can not tolerate too much overlap in interference.
Here in the U.S. could you use it for digital voice? The FCC made a determination that DV and analog voice are considered ... voice, and since voice is not permitted on the band for us, we could not use such a mode. Which is a bit strange when you consider that someone listening to the raw data would have no way of knowing if it was voice or other kind of of "data." Even if we move toward bandwidth, rather than mode bandplans, it appears that modes will still play an important part. And in the past few months, I would have to say that I am much less supportive of segregation by bandwidth since many of the modes simply do not play well together. In particular, digital modes are severely impacted by even slight interference from modes such as SSB voice. This has become more noticeable on bands such as 40 meters with stations outside of the U.S. going down low in the band, even in what has been mostly digital data watering holes. For daytime range, the 30 meter band goes farther than 40 meters, so 1000 mile contacts are quite reasonable. 73, Rick, KV9U Andrew O'Brien wrote: > I was reading the 30M Digital Group web page ( > http://www.30meterdigital.org/ ) and thinking a bit... Much of what > is posted there makes sense to many of the people that are avid users > of the digitalradio Yahoo group. The band is not crowded with > contests, there is less competition with other modes, etc, etc. So, > perhaps we can make more of an effort to use this band, Has anyone > tried it for Digital Voice. ? Also, what typical range does the band > afford in daylight and evening conditions? > > > >
