[Boatanchors] [Bulk] Re: ARRL Band Plan

[Jim Wilhite]

Not wishing to be argumentative but why would we want to alter the band 
space just for contests?  I regularly monitor 80 meters and 40 digital modes 
but do not see a level of activity that merits additional space, except as 
you say during contests.

I do see a lot of activity between 3.8 and 4.0 but it is all SSB and they 
are every 1.5 to 2 Kc apart.   Probably that is because so many hams have 
General licenses and when in a round table the group would have several who 
cannot go below 3.8 Mc.  To me that would be a good argument for expanding 
the space for SSB down to at least 3.7 to better utilize the band, if not 
all the way to 3.6.

Jim
W5JO


-----Original Message----- 


How would you even define "busy"? there's a lot of variables. Suppose
there were a 1000 amateurs on the air between 3600 and 3900. Because I
may not in their skip zone or conditions don't favor me with decent
reception, I only hear 50 of them. I would say the band is not busy yet
there are 950 of them out there on the air that I can't hear.

If you really want to detect "busy", "lots of use", "crowded conditions",
etc. get on the air during a contest.

Counting activeness is sort of like trying o count dust particles blowing
through your back yard.

Pete, wa2cwa



On Sun, 12 Apr 2015 18:06:24 -0400 LM Picard <lmpicard at rogers.com>
writes:
> Just curious.  Does anyone have any data on just how crowed the bands
>
> are?  What fraction of the band allocations are "busy" at any
> particular
> time.
>
> The ranks of active hams seem to be thinning out.  Or am I wrong?
>
> Saw an article somewhere that shows that the average age of licensed
>
> hams keeps rising.  That is there are relatively few young people
> getting licensed.  The few young people interested in a technical
> hobby
> seem to be into computer gaming, overclocking, writing cell phone
> apps etc.
>
> On 12/04/2015 5:33 PM, Bry Carling wrote:
> > If you have an Extra yes CW US ALLOWED anywhere but quite a few
> areas you will only have QSOs with other extras nowadays since
> everyone else has lost some CW spectrum in recent years.
> >
> > If we are not vigilant they may well lose more.
> >
> > Best regards - Brian Carling