official observer card sent after ssb station trys to push us off the freq.

[w4bvt]

hi for those of you that dont know me my name is grant my call is w4bvt i am located near roanoke va. today i recived a oo card from n8wjs stateing that i am 35-40kc wide imposible i know my station is not that wide! during the time of the soposed infraction a ssb bunch that comes on every night that there is am activity had come on right on top of me and wb8bil and insted of them being the ones geting oo cards it is me! if memory serves me right n8wjs is one of those i hate am dorks that we all have to deal with why i dont know .by the way we were on 3.885 . this guy high lighted the portion of the notice that says no reply necessary i guess he does not like the idea of me calling him at 3 in the morning inquireing how he devined these shurly rice box acurate results! you know highlighters scare me! by the way another interesting fact is since the notice was sent the ssb bunch have been moveing closer to ongoing am activity how more obvious can you be this is shurely just structured meaness.just thought that you all should know about this little development and thank you all for a great community and for the continued preservation of the am mode ,grant

[ka3zlr]

Hello Grant,

 By any chance do you have the capabilities to measure your signal or know anyone with an analyzer that can do that for you, and pay particular attention to your outer edge products.

 By any chance did the monitor happen to state what device was used in the measurement process and send a Pictogram of your signal, it is "Not Required" but a Concerned Amateur First, would share the offending information, signal inefficiencies and distortion figures, and make suggestions on correction...then again i am a Concerned Amateur first and it is "Not required"  I know,... I would if I found any by products on a signal that carried a width of 35 to 40 Kc's..come on...Sheeze...

 I'm always very interested in the measurement process used by these OO's..

73. jack

[W4RON]

It seems clear to me that some AM hating SSBer got himself appointed as a OO.
What we need is a OO that's an AMer, then wear out the sindbanders that intentionally interfere with AMers with pink slips.

73, Ron w4ron

[w4bvt]

hi ron you know this kind of stuff can get a little side ways but if you have enogh traction so to speek .............thanks,grant

[W3SLK]

Grant said:

this guy high lighted the portion of the notice that says no reply necessary

Reply by sending him this

http://www.somis.org/OOO_card.jpeg

[ka3zlr]

Time to Fire Off Another E to the 3 land Rep at the league and maybe directly to the league Off's...and describe what I feel as "Good Official Observer Practice" and describe what Conditions and Equipments Used in their process such as:

Online web service as to who is who.

Online web service as to the Station Equipment used.

Online Pictorial of said Station.

Why Hide such a service.....it shud be open and accessible to all Licensee's...on their Web service.


Amateurs policing Amateurs should have accessibility to Both sides of any issue.

73. jack

[w4bvt]

i agree what are they useing ? i garrantee it is not a $6.000 spectrum analiser
like the one i checked the station out with .
another development that is interesting ,another ham that was not even on freq. got the same card 30-40kc wide he sent me a copy of the card and it is almost the same ,except he also acuses the station that was not on freq of incorect id whitch is kind of hard to do when your radio is turned off ! thanks for all the coments ,grant

[k4kyv]

Years ago I got an OO report that listed my mode as SSB, and the complaint was that my signal had excessive carrier, which allegedly violated the rule regarding purity of emissions.

The past couple of OO cards I have received over the past few years have been "good guy" reports complimenting me on the high quality and purity of the signal.

I recall once getting a rather nasty OO card, regarding an incident on 160.  I sent a photocopy of the card to ARRL HQ, and the person in charge sent me an apology, and directed the OO to send me a personal apology, which he did.  Then the HQ staff member sent me a  letter of inquiry to ask me if I was satisfied with the response.  I dropped him a note to say that I was satisfied and that as  far as I was concerned the matter was closed.

[ka3zlr]

Then there is alot to be said about recording operations,... written a guy up who wasn't even on the air huh..?... ... Ooopseys.....I'd request a copy of that and the OO's Monitoring Station log ... that'll fall on deaf ears.


Well I imagine that feller knows by now we're discussing this, this kinda news seems to travel rather quickly...I understand Human Nature...I have a problem with bias....hell we outta invite him in here and give him a quick run down on operations and Sig-in-Nail Processing....He would depart a much learned individual...

[W4RON]

Our CC-AWA club station W4AWA got a OO card a while back when it was taking part in one of the AWA old time transmitter contests running a 20s era Hartly.
The OO report said the CW note was "chirpy", well duh...

73, Ron w4ron

[ka3zlr]

Hey Ron he prolly Fergot to check the league website as to what corntest he was supposed to monitor...and understand what conditions he was going into...   Don't look to good on protocol here.....what the heck the other one's written up people who aren't even on the air... ....Read a Book take a test...Whammmo...

I am Now King... Bow you wide signals....LOL.. 

[Opcom]

If he's wrong, you should reply. And copy the FCC and ARRL.

[w4bvt]

i think the guy should have a chance to coment .i feel shure that we all would
like to hear about his side of the crappy reciver. this is why i brought this to you guys att. all should be aware it seems like it is just the start of a campain of crap from a groop that hates us [by us i mean all that opperate am] they think  this is how it is going to go down ,they think that they can hide behind there misunderstood rules and clean out the freq any way they can. infact the guys on 3.888 have sayed that they will come on any time they like no mater what is going on and backed it up with rules that dont exist! and have stated that they are in there rights to use any tactic needed to take us out! and that rily holinsworth is a frind and would back them up! these coments were made by nc4l the ring leader of the guys on 3.888 they come on eastern time 10- 11pm if there is no am activity they dont stay on long if at all. go figure! by the way the coments have been recorded multiple times during conversations where they were being notifyed that they were on top of a on going conversation! so yea please n8wjs tom oyer get out hear! i would love to see his explanation for all this garbage! and where the info ends up is up to those that own it ,so i think a good thing would be that they go away and stop this stuff before it gets that far. LAST CHANCE GUYS! thanks agin for all the input,grant

[WA1GFZ]

This is where a softrock and flex display help a lot because you can see exactly wide you are.

[Pete, WA2CWA]

I would suggest reviewing the qualifications required to get an Official Observer Appointment http://www.arrl.org/FandES/field/org/oo.html and further, the FAQ's surrounding the Official Observer program http://www.arrl.org/FandES/field/org/oo.html

The answer to one of the FAQ's states:
"If you feel that the OO sent you a notice that violates the principles of the program, send a copy to your Section Manager (if known) or to Headquarters for evaluation and possible action. Quality control is critically important in a program as sensitive as this one!"
This is where you should start your query. In my opinion, your frustration would be better served by contacting your Section Manager, and laying out the reasons you believe the OO Notice was not warranted in this case. Although there have been numerous encounters around 3885 with adjacent channel interference, whether malicious or not, this is an issue for you to pursue if you feel you were wrongly cited. Of course, one could take the hard-nose approach and just "tough it out" and/or "beat them back" but both seem to me to be counterproductive. Although, Riley's replacement has not been announced, a job opening has been posted, I'm sure there are others within the FCC Enforcement Bureau who could field a malicious interference report if you notified them of any ongoing malicious activities around your frequency of interest.

[k4kyv]

Just as in the recent "Doctor is in" case in QST, there are a lot of people who fail to understand that the apparent bandwidth on a receiver when tuning past a signal is the sum of the bandwidth of the transmitted signal + the width of the receiver passband.  This is exacerbated by the fact that very few signals, especially AM, have a sharp cutoff at the edges of their occupied bandwidth, and that even the best performing receiver i.f. bandpass filters typically have something like a 1.5:1 or 2:1, 6/60 dB shape factor.

Let's take a hypothetical example of both the transmitted signal and the receiver bandwitdhs having a 2:1 shape factor.  Let's say the AM signal's nominal bandwidth is 10 kHz, and the receiver's selectivity is set to 3.5 kHz. This set of conditions would not be atypical on to-day's phone bands.  The signal would theoretically appear 13.5 kHz wide on the receiver, but considering the shape factor with a signal 120 dB above the noise floor at the receiver, that signal would be audible over 27 kHz of the dial of the receiver as you tuned past, nearly three times the nominal bandwidth of the signal.

[ka2zni]

Sorry to hear about your troubles Grant... Must be the season for OO reports, I got one in the mail this week as well. The guy doing the listening was WS8RM, and I hate to say it but I was on AM with Steve, KJ8CQ on 8/02/2008 on 3.880 at 2134 UTC...

It was a good operator report and I quote: "Your recent QSO was a fine example of Amateur Radio. I would not hesitate to let a visitor to my 'shack' listen to your operation. 73 and keep up the good work."

Now there's alot of guys that do a lot finer job than I, their all over 3.880,3.885 etc, and one of them would be you Grant... 'C mon, 35-40 KC wide? Give me a flippin' break... Man I dialed up and down on many operators including you and ya ain't that darn wide to say the least!!!

I guess by the above, It's all a matter of who's listening and when... Those Slopbuckets on 3.888 need drop kicked right out of the spectrum and into the toilet.. Now there's poor conduct to say the least.... And yes recordings have been taken, and forwarded , and probably not a darn thing will be done, so much for band expansion and more room.

Sorry you got black balled Grant, I and alot of other guys think you run a terrific station as evidenced by the plentiful comments every night, don't let it bug you, send an official observers notice back that he plain sucks at what he does and that he needs to pull his head out of his backside and tackle some of the real issues at hand, Splattering Buckshotting Slopbuckateers...

Catch ya later Grant and anyone else reading on....

[W3SLK]

Hey Grant, be happy you didn't get the OO card I got one time while operating on 40M AM. The OO cited me for having a "carrier" on my signal. I looked him up in the call book, (this was pre-internet times), and found his phone number. I queried him about his 'observation' and he re-iterated his point about having carrier. I told him I was using AM and his response was, "Why would you use AM??) Nuff said.

[WD8BIL]

right on top of me and wb8bil

According to the OO I wasn't there, Grant! 

[N3DRB The Derb]

I think all O.O's should be BBQ'ed and turned on a handle over a open fire.  Then made into Offical Observer kabobs.

The only O.O. card that was ever worth the paper it was written on was the gag card sent out by JJ that said Jesus and Jefferson would never approve of belching and farting.

 

[W3RSW]

How would they know? 

The only OO card I got was as a JN running a hb 6BQ6 osc./pi net on 2nd harmonic outside the hambands.  I might still have the card around here somewhere. The xmitter is long gone for JN parts.  Anyway, Invested in a Lafayette wavemeter after that.  Cute little thing w/ 1 1/4 in. meter and diode pick-off.
Lucky to be licensed after the days where you had to guess which band your on... heh, heh. The 'receiver' of the day couldn't tell me much. 

[Todd, KA1KAQ]

by the way we were on 3.885 .

This guarantees you nothing beyond using a frequency first, any frequency. It's not owned by any individual or group and will likely be used against you as a case of perceived frequency ownership in any argument or discussion. One of the reasons I never liked being penned into the ghetto-window area, it's like painting a target on your signal. Operate there and anywhere else your license allows.

Depending on band conditions, signals can appear to be pretty wide at times. But on 75, not likely the problem (especially at night). Unless the report has some technical explanation involved and was written in a way to help you address the problem, I'd chalk it up to more of the same ignorance/intolerance too. Any AM signal is too wide to someone with a SSB mentality who is pre-disposed to believing so.

BTW, we had some of the lids from 3.888/3.905 follow us down to the 80m portion last year, intent on interfering with any AM contact. Since the AMers who operated down there have moved back up to the ghetto, I assume the problem children have followed. Good times.

[KA1ZGC]

this guy high lighted the portion of the notice that says no reply necessary i guess he does not like the idea of me calling him at 3 in the morning inquireing how he devined these shurly rice box acurate results!

Reply anyway. You have every right to, since he started the conversation with an unsolicited correspondence to you. He has no grounds for a harassment complaint as a result. Make sure to copy your ARRL section manager (and his, too), as Pete pointed out.

Without talking down to the guy (even though he deserves it), ask some simple yet pointed questions, such as:

• Exactly which FCC regulation was violated?
• Exactly what apparatus was employed to make these measurements?
• Exactly when was said measurement apparatus last calibrated, and what accredited laboratory performed said calibration?
• How many other operators has he cited for excessive bandwidth?
• Who were these operators, and when were these citations issued?

The answer to the first question: there is no such regulation (spare me the "no more than necessary" rule, that's ambiguous, vague, and unenforcible. There is no specific bandwidth limit, so there is no specifically excessive bandwidth, either).

The second and third questions are entirely valid, but chances are the answers won't be.

I'm sure everyone will claim that the last two questions are none of your business, but the intention is not that he answers you, rather that your (and his) section managers ask themselves (and him) the same questions.

Have others proofread your response before you send it.

Don't turn this into a pissing match. That's exactly what this guy wants you to do. If you take the high road, others will see for themselves that this guy is taking the low road, without you having to say it.

Give a guy like this one chance to expose himself as a fraud, and he'll take that one chance to do so several times.

I know some former OOs who had their status yanked away from them for abusing their responsibility. This is not likely to happen this time, but if this guy makes a habit of this kind of behavior, the League will get sick of it (and sick of receiving complaints about him) and remove him from the list.

Good luck.

--Thom
Killer Agony One Zipper Got Caught

[k4kyv]

I guess by the above, It's all a matter of who's listening and when... Those Slopbuckets on 3.888 need drop kicked right out of the spectrum and into the toilet.. Now there's poor conduct to say the least.... And yes recordings have been taken, and forwarded , and probably not a darn thing will be done, so much for band expansion and more room.

Strap softly and turn up the wick...

Sorry you got black balled Grant, I and alot of other guys think you run a terrific station as evidenced by the plentiful comments every night, don't let it bug you, send an official observers notice back that he plain sucks at what he does and that he needs to pull his head out of his backside and tackle some of the real issues at hand, Splattering Buckshotting Slopbuckateers...

[Ed-VA3ES]

A lot of SSB'ers really have no understanding of how to measure any bandwidth, let alone AM bandwidth on a  typical rice-box.  Don, what you have described is true, but too many slopbucketeers  don't understand the relationship of bandwidth to signal strength, and just what those "60dB down" points mean.   

No one understands that to measure any bandwidth of a received signal, one must turn off the AGC.  Second, no rice-box that I know of has any kind of calibrated signal input meter.  Turn off the AGC as you must, and the S-Meter stops working.     What typical slopbucketeer has a calibrated spectrum analyser handy?

Try explaining all this (including Don's  posting) to today's  typical slopbucketeer.   Good luck.  I have tried for 15 years or more and it's  a pointless exercise.     

The best suggestion is simply to strap and ignore.   

Just as in the recent "Doctor is in" case in QST, there are a lot of people who fail to understand that the apparent bandwidth on a receiver when tuning past a signal is the sum of the bandwidth of the transmitted signal + the width of the receiver passband.  This is exacerbated by the fact that very few signals, especially AM, have a sharp cutoff at the edges of their occupied bandwidth, and that even the best performing receiver i.f. bandpass filters typically have something like a 1.5:1 or 2:1, 6/60 dB shape factor.

Let's take a hypothetical example of both the transmitted signal and the receiver bandwitdhs having a 2:1 shape factor.  Let's say the AM signal's nominal bandwidth is 10 kHz, and the receiver's selectivity is set to 3.5 kHz. This set of conditions would not be atypical on to-day's phone bands.  The signal would theoretically appear 13.5 kHz wide on the receiver, but considering the shape factor with a signal 120 dB above the noise floor at the receiver, that signal would be audible over 27 kHz of the dial of the receiver as you tuned past, nearly three times the nominal bandwidth of the signal.