Hi Joe,
On 6/6/2025 8:42 AM, Joseph Taylor via wsjt-devel wrote:
We (developers of the digital protocols in WSJT and its sister programs)
have never dictated any band usage plans or unilaterally set any rules
for particular frequencies.
But when you plugged default frequencies into you software, you DID, by
default, establish those frequencies.
On the contrary, we've always emphasized
that such plans must be community decisions. We have sought wide input
before making even tentative recommendations for a dial frequency for
exercising a potential new mode.
Exactly WHERE did you solicit that input? But more to the point, why
didn't you learn what was happening on other bands first?
One of the most egregious of these decisions was to plant the FT4
frequency in the middle of 40M CW, in a part of the band that is widely
used by QRP operations, county expeditions, POTA, SOTA, and QRS CW (QRS
is slower speed). And I DID respond, VERY loudly to that decision.
I could be wrong, but I don't recall
that you ever responded to any of these requests for input, when we made
them.
Of course I didn't respond to requests in a space where I wasn't listening.
On 6/6/2025 10:57 AM, Shirley Márquez Dúlcey wrote:
> That 3 kHz slice that is being occupied by FT8 on most bands is
> supporting DOZENS of simultaneous QSOs when the band is open. That's
> spectral efficiency that no other popular mode can match, not even CW.
> Each signal on FT8 is about 50 Hz wide, so in theory there could be 60
> active QSOs without mutual interference.
I'm well aware of the spectral efficiency of the wonderful modes that
Joe and his team have developed. That's irrelevant. I've made great use
of several of them going back to when W6CQZ had a multi-decoder for
JT65. But you've missed the point I've made -- these watering holes are
2.8 kHz, but you, and other users of various digital modes, have spaced
them at 10 kHz intervals, which for users of other modes, like CW, RTTY,
and SSB, that are not "channel-based," to lose 7 kHz of spectrum for
each of these watering holes.
Why do they (I say we, because I use those modes during contests) lose
that space? Because users of these modes fail to follow the FUNDAMENTAL
rule of ham radio since its beginning century ago -- to not interfere
with existing activity on a frequency, which requires LISTENING on that
frequency before transmitting. And, by the nature of how software for
these digital modes work, the user cannot listen to the frequency on
which he/she is transmitting -- we hear only that 2.8 kHz bandwidth, of
which we're using only a few hundred Hz. Remember -- with a dial
frequency of 7,046 kHz and an offset of 500 Hz, I'm transmitting on
7046.5 kHz. When I'm making CW or RTTY QSOs on that frequency, an FT4
operator firing up on that frequency is interfering with me, violating
that fundamental rule!
When I'm looking for a frequency to use, I listen, AND I look at a
waterfall showing activity on the frequency for a while. For CW, a
frequency is a few hundred Hz wide, for RTTY, it's 300-400 Hz wide. I
can't count the number of times I've been running on a frequency for
10-20 minutes and have a digital signal come up on top of me.
73, Jim K9YC
_______________________________________________
wsjt-devel mailing list
wsjt-devel@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wsjt-devel
