Hi Andy, First I'd like to say that I think I can argue both sides of the coin on this matter. I think it is a very good idea to have a generally accepted and commonly known "watering holes" for the various modes to facilitate ease of finding another station in a particular mode. How about a specific frequency unique to every mode that would be a calling freq. You establish communications and move off elsewhere. I also like the idea of, by a gentleman's agreement, setting aside some specific freqs for some of the unattended modes/protocols: ALE, Winmor, PACTOR, (possibly other modes like: PropNetPSK, WSPR) etc. to ease interference issues both ways. On the other hand, I would not want a 3rd party who is non-involved in a particular communication with a station to come on freq and berate me for using a mode "out of the spectrum slice allotted." For example, what if you and I were using Olivia 500 on 20M (more specifically 14.092 MHz) and then we decided we wanted to use MT-63 1k. Would we have to move?? I think that should be decided by both stations depending on how busy the adjacent frequencies are. We should also take into account if by using a wider mode if we would be interfering with another ongoing communication. I don't think it should be set in stone that if we were to switch modes that we would have to also switch "spectrum slices", it might make it harder for us to re-establish communications if the frequency we agreed upon was in use by someone else. We should however keep in mind that we might want to move to a different "spectrum slice" to help alleviate any overcrowding and allow other stations that wished to use a certain mode in the "allotted spectrum slice" to do so. On 20M, I would suggest reversing the order of RTTY and digi modes for the segments of 14.080-14.093 & 14.093-14.096. The reason I say that is because in my opinion I feel that it is already a preconceived "agreement" by a wider group that RTTY is operated starting at 14.080 and on up, and is used pretty heavily during contests and DXing. I think we'd be pushing a boulder uphill. In this case work with a stronger force rather than against it. I also feel that the amounts of the spectrum slices in this case should be reversed. Give the greater amount to RTTY and the lesser amount to the digital modes. During a RTTY contest weekend I think many stations would start around 14.080 and work upwards. With that in mind, I'm curious why we don't use the higher end of the 20M CW subband more predominantly for digi modes; I'm referring to higher than 14.100 MHz (leaving adequate room for the NCDXF beacons there). Please forgive my ignorance, but wouldn't that suffice for bandplans worldwide? I feel that even if we were to use PSK31 & RTTY that there would be plenty of room still for all of the other digital modes "upstairs". Generally speaking it's pretty quiet; look at the number of QSO's you've had there in digi or CW. Again, my opinion is that I feel that giving "spectrum slices" to groupings of digi modes can be beneficial to users. I would like it to be recommended more as a gentleman's agreement, rather than set in stone that ONLY those modes can and should be operated there. A general guideline rather than a law.
73 de W8RIT Dave --- In digitalradio@yahoogroups.com, Andy obrien <k3uka...@...> wrote: > > http://www.obriensweb.com/bandmap.html > > A quick and dirty chart. Comments welcome. >
