Where is all the CW activity on 7075-7125?

[k4kyv]

Some time ago a thread appeared on two other amateur radio forums concerning US amateurs using phone below 7125. Several comments suggested that we should lobby the FCC to expand the US phone band down to 7100 or even to 7075. Others harshly responded with suggestions to the effect that this was nothing but more "anti-CW rubbish".

To-night, I decided to give 40 a listen while the Field Day operators were in full force. Since this contest includes all modes, and during the evening 40m seems to be the most active band for the contest, I thought this would be a good opportunity to take a snapshot of the usage of the various modes throughout this band. So I scanned the band several times between 0315 and 0340 GMT, when contest activity was probably at its peak.

One thing I noticed right away was that the CW band seemed substantially more active with signals than the phone band, although more than the usual amount of phone activity was heard competing with broadcasters on 7200-7300. 7125-7200 was fully occupied, but the congestion was not unbearable as I recall the phone band on FD in years past.

I slowly scanned the band several times during this time period, and here is what I observed:

7000-7067: Heavily congested with CW, peaking around 7040. Somewhat less active above 7050, but well occupied by CW stations all the way up to 7067. No RTTY, data or foreign SSB was heard on this segment.

Data signals were heard on 7068, 7071, between 7073-7075 and 7101. One RTTY signal was heard on 7080.

The only CW to be heard above 7067 were three signals: on 7108, 7113 and 7117. At one time during that 25-minute period I heard a total of four CW signals above 7067.

At any one time, a total of 3-4 foreign SSB signals were heard between 7075 and 7125.

The question I have to ask is this. If maintaining the current U.S. subband restrictions in the 7075-7125 segment is so essential for the preservation of the CW mode as some claim, why was there not more CW activity to-night in this segment during the contest, which brings stations of all modes out of the woodwork? Why was over 90% of the RTTY/Data activity between 7068 and 7075? Why was the rest of the band moderately to heavily congested with contest and other activity, while 7075-7125 was practically devoid of signals?

There would be less griping from the DX crowd about AM'ers operating near 7160 if US amateurs, and US amateurs only, were not restricted by the FCC from using almost half the segment of the "new" 40m band where phone operation takes place world-wide.

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

Amen.

[ve6pg]

..2 weeks ago, sunday afternoon, i was on 7055 lsb...this guy came on, yelling and screaming that we (the group), were not allowed on ssb, below 7125...we explained that he was out of band, and we were not...one fellow told him we are canadians, and not subjected to the fcc, or american laws...he went on, and on...he would not hear of it...this guy started jamming, yelling, doing whatever he could to disrupt us..of course, he did not give his call...real pain in the ass....

..sk..

[Pete, WA2CWA]

There's probably several reasons for less CW activity then phone activity during Field Day. Generally, two people are setup at each station; one for operating and one for logging. So, you need both people to receive CW at roughly the same speed. Not always easy especially if your radio club is populated with lots of new hams that don't have lots of CW experience. Can be even worst under contest conditions. With lots of advertised PR, visitors want to hear the action and responses. Phone allows that to happen. CW doesn't provide the "wow" and "cool stuff" responses that visitors, media, and local officials can take away with them. At our Field Day site, 95 per cent of the operating was done on phone. It provided the newly licensed or inexperienced operators a chance to get hand's on experience under contest battle conditions. I did some CW on 6 meters during the night to work some scatter to add to the point count. I did my own logging. The other stations set up were doing phone operation on 75, 40 and 20/15/10  meters.

[k4kyv]

..2 weeks ago, sunday afternoon, i was on 7055 lsb...this guy came on, yelling and screaming that we (the group), were not allowed on ssb, below 7125...we explained that he was out of band, and we were not...one fellow told him we are canadians, and not subjected to the fcc, or american laws...he went on, and on...he would not hear of it...this guy started jamming, yelling, doing whatever he could to disrupt us..of course, he did not give his call...real pain in the ass....

Funniest thing of all is that he was the one out of band.

There's probably several reasons for less CW activity then phone activity during Field Day.

On the contrary, what I heard when I listened about 0300 GMT Saturday night (Sunday GMT), was decidedly more CW activity than phone activity on 40m.  The band was jammed packed with CW signals from about 7000-7070, while the phone portion was only moderately congested.  I probably could have found a spot somewhere for an AM QSO.  There just wasn't any significant amount of CW activity on 7075-7125.

[ve6pg]

..well don, you could always move to alaska, hawaii, american samoa, etc, if ya want to werk these freqs....

..sk..

[WB2YGF]

I worked 40M CW the whole contest.  Our club is into Field Day as a social activity.  I'm the closest thing they have to a contester, and I easily get bored these days.  So in between socializing and sleeping I did about 110 Q's.  I have to do my own logging so it gets lonely.    We only run battery powered 5W QRP so the phone guys have real trouble making contacts.  (If they'd put up some REAL antennas instead of that buddy-pole crap...but I digress.)  I pretty much worked 95% of what I called so I'm real happy with 160M G5RV I was using.  I didn't hear any contest activity on 160 this year, but I heard a lot more on 6M than I can ever remember hearing.

I left 80M CW to a young noob.....It's gonna impact the score but it's worth it if we can get some new CW blood.  (and the heck with the score) These were his FIRST CW contacts.  Apparently he went right from Novice to Tech-Plus and never actually got on CW before.  Takes guts to jump into a contest with zero CW experience.

As far as the range I worked, I just went up in frequency until the activity seemed to peter out.  Towards the end, I increased my range because I was running into mostly potential dupes at the low end.

FWIW, my 2c.

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

I think the high static levels may have driven some to CW. The night before FD almost all the activity on 40 meters was CW on the low end. Static levels were S-9 or more here.   

[Pete, WA2CWA]

There's probably several reasons for less CW activity then phone activity during Field Day.

On the contrary, what I heard when I listened about 0300 GMT Saturday night (Sunday GMT), was decidedly more CW activity than phone activity on 40m.  The band was jammed packed with CW signals from about 7000-7070, while the phone portion was only moderately congested.  I probably could have found a spot somewhere for an AM QSO.  There just wasn't any significant amount of CW activity on 7075-7125.

The last time I went over to the 40 meter station they had several hundred contacts on 40 phone. I think later on in the evening they went over to 75 phone. Don't really remember what time; I was on my 5 or 6 beer. It was hard finding the 6 meter station in the dark.

[AF9J]

I tell you Don, a couple of those guys on your Zed thread about this subject got just plain nasty.  The one guy kept on howling about "why are you being greedy, and wanting to take away 7075 to 7100 from us for exclusve phone use?  What's your problem with operating between 7200 & 7300?"  I responded a short time ago, that unless you work nights or are retired, 7200 to 7300 is mess from BCI in late afternoon and at night.  I also stated that there are NO exclusively phone segments on the ham bands. You can work CW anywhere, and as a matter of fact this is the case on 2m, where hardly anybody operates in the CW & data exclusive segment below 144.100 MHz.  I'm not going to respond anymore to those guys.  I dealt with idiots like them, when I suggested activity nights (like you have on VHF & UHF) for 30m.  The attitude was the same - "yeah the activity is low, but we want everything to stay the way it is and NEVER change."  They are "defenders of the (CW) faith."  Anti-CW, anti-digital, anti-phone, anti-ssb, and anti-AM are all the same to me.  I have no use for them.

[ve6pg]

..what/where is this thread that caused all the fuss?..

..sk..

[AF9J]

Here you go Tim.

http://forums.qrz.com/showthread.php?t=208514

73,
Ellen - AF9J

[w3jn]

Indeed, Ellen, those guys are absolutely wacko 

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

CW Freaks. The worst of ham radio.

Indeed, Ellen, those guys are absolutely wacko 

[k4kyv]

..well don, you could always move to alaska, hawaii, american samoa, etc, if ya want to werk these freqs....

Canada is a lot closer and less expensive to travel to.

[K5UJ]

I haven't operated FD in years.  The local club has turned it into a competitive contest event and I have an issue with that.  To me FD is about emergency preparedness.  I attended a FD prep. session at the club monthly meeting (held in November, 6, 7 months ahead of FD) and there was some guy yelling at everyone to be sure to contact management on some 2M FM frequency whenever they needed to take a potty break.  They were all about putting up towers, beams, lugging computers into the field...all the things no one is going to do for a real emergency but what you'd do to win a contest.  So I got up and left.  ARRL should de-contest the event by coming up with another scoring method but because ARRL has always been run by contesters that's never going to happen.  I used to operate it when I belonged to clubs that had a few guys shoot wires over trees, crank up a couple of generators and make some QSOs with their beat up old gear when they felt like it and sat around and bs the rest of the time--to me there's more realistic emergency preparedness work with that then there is with towers, beams and your IC7800 dream contest rig.

Anyway, my very unscientific checking over the past few years has shown me that the cw sub-bands are way underused compared to 30-35 years ago but even back then I think on 40, you'd mostly hear RTTY above 7070 except during contests.  Hams including me, are just not operating cw like they once did.  It's a dying mode.  I have a complete cw station but only use it to occasionally try to work a dxpedition.   The rest of the time I simply do not have the patience for it but I will say there are some real nice hams and great guys operating cw--you don't have anything like the lids you find on SSB.  All the guys I know who are die-hard cw ops are hams who were licensed before 1970 and have always operated cw exclusively.  That's a group that keeps getting smaller.   They sure were po'ed when FCC moved the 75 m. phone band down to 3600 and a few have kept operating a bit above that in what I suspect is a protest move.   That change on the FCC's part was the result of some ARRL action backfiring on them but I can't recall the details now.

73

Rob K5UJ

[w3jn]

I fully support anyone's desire to work CW and I think it's great there are many who enjoy that mode.  The only thing I have a problem with is reflexive defensiveness towards anyone who points out things such as a dearth of activity in certain CW sub bands, the fact that taking a CW test isn't a measure of technical competence, etc.

[WB2YGF]

I used to operate it when I belonged to clubs that had a few guys shoot wires over trees, crank up a couple of generators and make some QSOs with their beat up old gear when they felt like it and sat around and bs the rest of the time--

Sounds like our club.  There is some talk of merging our field day with our cross town rivals and their "professional" operation, but I think most of us will revolt.  The biggest problem now is coming up with money for the $350 ARRL insurance policy. *sigh*

I do like using the laptop for logging.  Working by myself, I don't have the time (or desire) to mess with paper dupe sheets.  At the end of the contest, I tethered my laptop to my cellphone and emailed my log to the guy who submits our entry.

Rob, I recommend you find a group of like-minded fellows and form your own field day.  I helped start ours with 2 other guys.

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

Or just skip field day.

[K5UJ]

CW Freaks. The worst of ham radio.

I think QRP freaks have them beat.

[K5UJ]

I used to operate it when I belonged to clubs that had a few guys shoot wires over trees, crank up a couple of generators and make some QSOs with their beat up old gear when they felt like it and sat around and bs the rest of the time--

Sounds like our club.  There is some talk of merging our field day with our cross town rivals and their "professional" operation, but I think most of us will revolt.  The biggest problem now is coming up with money for the $350 ARRL insurance policy. *sigh*

I do like using the laptop for logging.  Working by myself, I don't have the time (or desire) to mess with paper dupe sheets.  At the end of the contest, I tethered my laptop to my cellphone and emailed my log to the guy who submits our entry.

Rob, I recommend you find a group of like-minded fellows and form your own field day.  I helped start ours with 2 other guys.

Well this time it didn't matter because the Hamboree was the same day as FD and and that made it a no-brainer, the Hamboree won of course.   

Any time you have a club having a nice fun FD and contesters (who all seem to want to make everything in life a competitive event) find out and want to take over, run as fast as you can.   

[k4kyv]

Something that would make FD more fun and more educational would be to treat it less like a contest over the air, where the sole priority is racking up the maximum number of contacts to run up a score, and concentrate more towards comparing notes with other participants about the set-up, describing antennas, power sources, rigs used and their configuration, etc., letting the "score" become secondary in importance.  Make it more the old AM Jamborees of the 1980's, the AWA 1929 QSO Party or straight key night. Let those who are interested in running up a contest score go ahead and operate it like a contest to their hearts content, but allow other alternatives that could be more effective at creating emergency preparedness and grabbing the interest of non-ham observers.

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

LOL! True, a much bigger pool of freaks.

CW Freaks. The worst of ham radio.

I think QRP freaks have them beat.

[Tom WA3KLR]

There is apparently a market for $300 to $900 keyer paddles.  I assume the QRP'ers are working CW.  Perhaps we can just group them together as freaks.

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

Most QRPers are cool. Many build and experiment. I talked to a guy on 40 meters the other night running just 1 watt. I got him to turn his power down to 250 mW. I could still hear him! He had modified his Icom box to run this sort of low power. He said most of his contacts were on CW. His antenna was a 4-element homebrew wire beam! Gotta love that kind of stuff.

When I say CW freaks, I mean those who want exclusive (and usually extensive amounts) frequencies for CW and/or those who claim the CW test kept troublemakers and "CB types" out of ham radio.