The AM Forum

hi All,
My Cousin Joe wants to move ARRL 160 meter Frequency because there is a lot of cw activity on their present frequency. He wants to avoid QRMing. He asked for suggestions because he was thinking down near 1802. I suggested there are a lot of weak DX stations near the edge of the band. I suggested 1830 to 1835. Just below the SSB nets and above most of the cW.
Any input from you guys??

Hi Frank,

They're on 1818 now, I think?

From my past 160M CW DXing experience, 1820- 1835 was a CW DX hot spot. Doing bulletins on 1830-35 would piss off a lot of guys. As it is now, I hear guys complain about 1AW when they do bulletins now on the CW low end. Also, watch out for the 1840-1845? area.  It's an SSB DX calling area.  I would suggest they clear out of the weak signal DX area below 1850 completely and pick something like 1850 - 1865.  That is a casual rag chew area for ssb.

Actually, there's usually not a lot of CW activity down below 1815. Maybe it's the foreign DX frequency restrictions. So, Joe's idea may be better to hug the low end than where they are now.

Either way,  I'll bet they end up staying down in the CW area and continue pestering the weak signal DXers. There's really no reason to be down that low banging out 1KW of high angle newscasts.  Tell him 1865.

T

I heard a lot of stuff between 1800 and 1810. Above 40 there is a lot of SSB.
Sounds like someone is going to be P&Ming.

Hi Hi Fine Business, OM.

Hi Frank,
How long has W1AW been there? I would imagine it has been some time.
Surprised that it has become an issue, as it is a published frequency, most folks should understand and QSY. CW ops tend to behave a little differently that certain other modes, if you get my drift. They generally cooperate and understand such things. You don't seem to find the "my frequency" mentality often on CW.

Joe might want to ask the folks at FISTS, http://www.fists.org/, an organization of CW ops, for an opinion. Perhaps they can poll their members. By the way, the FISTS calling frequency for 160 meters is 1.808 MHz.

Tom's got some good suggestions and points with the DX crowd, I would certainly stay away from them.
However, when you start getting above the DX area, you are near or into prime fone band.

The ARRL bulletin service transmissions are of very short duration in comparison to the 24 hours in a day, hard to understand someone getting wound up about the League's service.

In some way, this in encouraging, it must mean that activity on 160 is picking up. I've noted that trend myself, seems that more ops have migrated down to the "Gentleman's Band", let's hope the behavior matches the name.

Driftnet beacons strangely silent this winter, I've heard them, but no where near as often or well as in previous years. If its a change in propagation, or perhaps in deployment, not sure, just an observation.

Have a great New Year OM!

Knowing the ARRgghhL, I suspect they will plop it somewhere around 1885! :P

Hi Bruce,

The problem is when listening to the weak signal DX CW activity, operators tend to tune  1815 up to about 1835.  When 1AW is on 1818, they are running horizontally polarized at 1500W with a low antenna (vs: verticals with low angles of most DXers) and just hammer the band with adjacent garbage from overload.  I always know when they are on - they have a clean signal, but they simply create intense overload as any signal would that pins the S-meter locally.  It's like leaning over to hear a whisper and someone yells in your ear... :-)

Thinking more about it, if 1865 is not good for them, Joe's original idea of going down around 1801 or so sounds good. I rarely hear any activity down there. The DX crowd would probably applaud.  I believe most foreign DXers cannot operate down there, thus the vacancy.

T

This just in (from to-day's ARRL LETTER):

1802.5 is perfect.

Congrats to Cousin Joe for a wise decision!

T

I have heard that drift nets now use satellite tracking...

Some do but I hear them regularly on 160 meters in the winter months. Some are quit loud.