In article ,
Brian Kelly wrote:

The BC stations in 7.0-7.1 have always seemed to me to be much more of
a problem than they are in 7.2-7.3 but maybe that's just a perception
on my part. Beyond that cleaning out 7.0-7.1 will be a huge
improvement for the CW and digital crowd but the phone guys will still
have work to do at upcoming WRCs to obtain the same improvements.

Remember that the "CW band" concept only exists in the U.S. In the
rest of the world the 40m phone band starts at 7.0mHz. Here in
Israel, all of Europe and Africa, the whole band is only 7.0-7.1 mHz.

Getting the broadcast band out of there 7.0-7.2 will also open that
extra 100kHz to us too. It would be nice to be able to use 40m for
SSB to the U.S., something I can't do now.

Since the novices are just about gone, IMHO the U.S. should drop the
7.1-7.15 mHz CW band. Actually what I would like to see is a worldwide
7.0-7.2 mHz 40m band, with the following "band plan"

7.000-7.050 CW
7.050-7.100 Digital
7.100-7.200 SSB voice, no SSTV, packet, etc.

Geoff (4x1gm, N3OWJ)
--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson 972-54-608-069
Do sysadmins count networked sheep?

"Phil Kane" wrote in message t.net...
On 6 Jul 2003 01:10:01 -0700, Brian Kelly wrote:

have no idea how or why the BC stations choose their specific
operating freqs within their bands. Gotta be strategies involved. Any
clues here?

Four times a year, the ITU International Frequency Registration
Board (or whatever it's called nowadays) holds a conference for SW
broadcast frequency assignment. Most of it is by paper submission
and is routine "we've been on this frequency for 70 years....."
stuff.

For new requests, the requesting Administration will have submitted
info on the location of the transmitter, directionality and power,
hours of service, and the target area. A computerized frequency
coordination study is made by the IFRB to determine what frequency
in the band in question would cause no harmful interference to
existing (earlier priority date) stations. Quite often the
coordination will be for less or different hours or power than
requested to avoid any harmful interference to or from the
applicant. This coordination will be "ratified" at the quarterly
conference and a priority date assigned.

I had no idea the IFRB existed, clears up my question nicely, tnx
Phil. Sounds very much like the basic procedure used by the FCC for
our AM BC stations.

One thing I do know is that significant freq shifts can cost the BC
stations a bunch of money because the equipment and antenna arrays are
purpose-built & tweaked for operating on specific freqs. I understand
that they cannot just grab a big knob and twist it to QSY 150 kHz like
we can. I 'spose this is why it'll take six years to fully implement
their move out of 7.0-7.1.

Or so they say. A 150 kHz shift is no big deal as long as the
broadcaster is willing to take the transmitter down for a period of
time (weeks? months?) to find the proper coil and capacitor settings
(synthesizers are a no-brainer nowadays). A good friend of mine was
a tech at a SWBC station years ago and could do a band change with
pre-set taps in less than two minutes (of course the walk-in 50 KW GE
monster was shut off during that time).

He can have it, I have an allergic reaction to kilovolt B+. On and
"off".

The long lead time comes in not where the broadcaster has to
order and install parallel equipment currently (from scratch it
should take no more than 2 years at the very outside) but where the
broadcaster wants to amortize the equipment, i.e. when they are
ready to order a new transmitter they will order it for the new
frequency.

Squeeze the nickel until the buffalo yelps, common sense.

w3rv

(Geoffrey S. Mendelson) wrote in message ...
In article ,
Brian Kelly wrote:

The BC stations in 7.0-7.1 have always seemed to me to be much more of
a problem than they are in 7.2-7.3 but maybe that's just a perception
on my part. Beyond that cleaning out 7.0-7.1 will be a huge
improvement for the CW and digital crowd but the phone guys will still
have work to do at upcoming WRCs to obtain the same improvements.

Remember that the "CW band" concept only exists in the U.S. In the
rest of the world the 40m phone band starts at 7.0mHz.

Lotta hams in this country don't realize that.

Here in
Israel, all of Europe and Africa, the whole band is only 7.0-7.1 mHz.

Understood.

Getting the broadcast band out of there 7.0-7.2 will also open that
extra 100kHz to us too. It would be nice to be able to use 40m for
SSB to the U.S., something I can't do now.

The bottom line biggie with respect to the 20+ year effort to
"harmonize" 40 has always been to open up more spectrum space for what
we consider "the DX". Finally being able to SSB transceive with the DX
on 40 should be an added benefit but I have reservations about how
well that will actually work in practice. Under the best of conditions
decent reliable copy by both stations between 4X4 and W3 is going to
be difficult to find. It's simply the nature of the beast we call 40M
phone.

Since the novices are just about gone, IMHO the U.S. should drop the
7.1-7.15 mHz CW band.

The U.S. "CW band" is 7.000-7.3000 . . .

Actually what I would like to see is a worldwide
7.0-7.2 mHz 40m band, with the following "band plan"

7.000-7.050 CW

As a CW contester I disagree with this one. All the major CW contests
(I can count at least four of those per year) take over at least the
lower 40 kHz +/-. If only the remaining 10 kHz were available for
non-contest CW operations on those weekends I think the howls of
protest would set some new records.

7.050-7.100 Digital
7.100-7.200 SSB voice, no SSTV, packet, etc.

Methinks *nothing* should be done along any of these lines until
(a)there is a significant volume of Region 1 & 3 operations in the
7.1-7.2 segemnt and (b) the impact of the elimination of code tests in
many countries can be gauged via experience. Fixing things we don't
even have yet is not going to have much sex appeal at the FCC or
amongst the bandplanners.

Geoff (4x1gm, N3OWJ)

w3rv