On 28/04/2019 16:07, Richard Solomon wrote:
Since roll-out is imminent, have we an agreement on which
frequencies to use ?
73, Dick, W1KSZ
Hi Dick,
not yet. There are many claims on the frequencies we have proposed, a
few with suggested alternatives but mostly just asking us to go
elsewhere. Getting to an acceptable set of suggested frequencies for FT4
even for occasional contest periods is difficult and it is made even
harder if we assume, not unreasonably, that FT4 may be used for general
DXing as well.
One option is not to recommend any frequencies and let the community
sort it out, then add the resulting frequencies to the default
recommendations later as/if they converge. Unfortunately I don't think
that will achieve the desirable global coordination, nor is it likely to
converge on the best choices. The only good attribute would be that the
developers can say "we didn't choose that frequency, don't blame us for
QRM" which is a bit of a cop out, and we will still be blamed anyway.
Another option is to sacrifice the JT9 slots in favour of FT4. Clearly
that is not straightforward given that JS8CALL has made a claim on that
bandwidth too. Personally I would love to see JT9 get more use, it is a
great mode for HF and I miss working the world with a few mW on the HF
bands.
Given the lack of truly free globally available slots in the narrow band
digital mode band plans, I suspect that no more than one 2 kHz slot per
band for FT4 should be an aim. By that I mean that if there is a contest
using FT4 then it should use those frequencies and non-contest
participants should defer. This is based on the premiss that FT4 has
been designed with contests in mind. This would need somewhat smarter
logic in WSJT-X to try and avoid chaos when non-contest participants
inadvertently get involved in contest QSOs. Of course each contest's
organizers can elect to suggest different slots which may be acceptable
if the traffic volumes are low enough.
Suggestions are still welcome, nothing is set in stone just yet.
73
Bill
G4WJS.
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