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4X1MK



Group: Members
Posts: 4
Joined: --
Posted: April 16 2004,23:02

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As many hams recall, when the WARC bands openend up in the 80's,
they were free of contesting and award hunting. In these narrow bands one
could settle down to some nice old-time hamming of a slower pace and not be
rattled by those wanting you only for an award or contest point.

To this day, the IARU still keeps these bands free of contests,
yet, alas, DXCC has added 10, 18 and 24.9 MHz into their lists, and the
relaxed nature of these bands has been violated.

A few days ago after finding a clear frequency in the 18 MHz
band (I asked twice before CQing), a pleasant QSO was established with a 100
watt Stateside station. Conditions were not fantastic, yet he was above the
noise level and we began getting acquainted with each other.

After 5 minutes, adjacent frequency noise began building up
making his signal difficult to copy. A few minutes later, a strong station
came on frequency and asked me to QSY "with my American friend" as I was
"splattering 1 KHz up" and interfering with a rare DX station. Continuing
our QSO became nearly impossible so I gave up, yet decided to tune around to
see what had happened.

Well, indeed a rare station in Thailand had come up on frequency
nearby, creating a pile-up. Since he couldn't sort through the multitude of
callsigns calling him, he decided to "spread them out" and asked them to
call him over a span of 20 KHz. (I was told that normally Thai hams are not
allowed to use the WARC bands, but because of their king's birthday a
temporary exception was being made.)

The SSB portion of 17 meters is but 60 KHz wide, and now one
third of the band had been rendered unuseable because of this manifestation.

How many QSO's were ruined by this? How often does this kind
of thing repeat itself? Is it fair that for the sake of gaining a
certificate that those who value a "quickie" QSO over a real conversation
cause goodly portions of bands to be trashed?

In my mind there are a two main points:

1. There is no justification to "spread out" pile-ups over
valuable spectrum. This cuts down the already narrow useable band with no
consideration to other QSOs on the band.

2. THE WARC BANDS SHOULD REVERT TO BEING NATURE RESERVES as
they were when first made available. There is already plenty of "DXing" and
paper hunting on all the older bands, and if someone has finally worked
every conceivable award and honor on the older bands, maybe the time has
come that he or she discover what a real personal contact QSO is, and how
rewarding it can be to take the time get to know the real people behind the
callsigns who are more than just objects used in gaining a place on the
honor roll.

Don't get me wrong - DXCC and contests are fine and have their
place. Simply put, there should remain places where those who chose an
other style of hamming can enjoy regular QSOs undisturbed.

LET US PETITION OUR NATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS TO CAUSE THE IARU TO
PASS A RESOLUTION TO LIBERATE THE WARC BANDS FROM THE DXCC AND OTHER AWARDS.

sincerely,

Ron Gang 4X1MK