N7MAL said:
>I have been humbled, but first thanks for the reports. Apparently it was
>heard from the Atlantic to the Pacific generally at the same signal level.
>While it was on it wiped the middle-level and low-level sigs, from Asia,
>during the AA Contest. The really strong sigs were not effected. I have not
>yet heard from anyone on the AA side of the pacific.
>
>Now about being humbled: 2 different guys reported the signal strength to me
>and both basically said they had only heard stories about the woodpecker
>years ago from 'old-timers' in their local radio clubs. I was able to
>identify the signal within 30 seconds by listening to it and tuning through
>it. I really feel like an 'ole-fart' now.
>If anyone on the Asia side of the Pacific please report it.
And before that:
>Late Fri nite/early Sat morning the Old Woodpecker was heard for more than
>an hour in the CW portion of 40 meters. It really hurt the AA Contest until
>it quit. It was more than 40khz wide with that unmistakable pulse rate.
>I'm curious if others heard it and if there is any definite info where it is
>coming from. It's a real 40M CW contest killer.....
If it's on 40 or 80m, it's probably the Chinese from Hainan.
If it's on 30m or above, it's probably the British from ZC4.
The Chinese have tended to be wider & stay on for long periods
of time, whilst the Brits are narrow & more agile (following the
MUF & one would like to think, trying to reduce the harm they're
causing since they have some semblance of a conscience, or
simply two decades of complaints can make a difference, albeit
a small one).
Pulse rate is not a good way to identify the source, as both the
Chinese & the Brits use more than one.
OTHR on certain frequencies on 20m might be the Ukrainians or
the Iranians.
And on 10m - if it ever opens again - it's back to either the Brits
or the Chinese from Xisha in the South China Sea.
Something I didn't know, despite having known OTHR during my
entire amateur life, is that the British have been at it since 1986
from ZC4. The Chinese only came on the scene in 2004. The
Russians are apparently back at it again, but nothing of the scale
back before 1986.
Before too long, general rules like the ones above will no longer
apply, as Australia slipped in some footnotes legitimizing use of
3.7-4 & 10.1-10.15 Mc for their OTHR.
Plenty of reports of the various OTHRs being submitted to IARU
Monitoring System in Regions 1 & 3, as well as spots on the
clusters. In IARU Region 2 - which consists of north, central &
south America - there's been only one report of OTHR in all of
2009 & from what I can see anything spotted from there presumes
it's the Chinese, even if it was probably the Brits.
All the OTHRs have been reported to the ITU Monitoring System,
which unlike IARU can take action. Interestingly, the Brits have
grassed themselves to ITU-MS, but so far nothing seems to have
come from it.
Any country that operates OTHR on the amateur bands is in
breach of the obligations undertaken for membership in the ITU,
making it an electromagnetic pariah state if you will.
And I would suggest as long as the first-world continues to
operate OTHR on the amateur bands, then everybody else will
follow suit.
Discussion of OTHR here will achieve little, what is needed are
more complaints of these & other intruders to be submitted to
your telecommunications authority & letting IARU MS (via your
national member-society) know what you've done.
If anything, please spot OTHR on the clusters, as IARU R3 MS
harvests intruder spots for inclusion in its reports - active hams
as the greatest stakeholders could very well be the only way
we have to ever get anywhere with establishing there's a problem
here that needs to be sorted.
73, ex-VR2BG/p (aka Canary In The Coal Mine).
OTHR presentation video: mms://max-server.net/2008_vr2bg
OTHR presentation: http://home.pacific.net.hk/~vr2bg/hrsa/apdxc-othr.pdf
What it's like here "on point": http://home.pacific.net.hk/~vr2bg/hrsa
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