"Jim Jarvis" <jimjarvis@comcast.net> wrote:
>
> I'm considering a serious psk31 topband effort next
> season. Suburban lot. Wire antennas in trees. Inv L,
> or carolina windom @ 75'(low). As much power as I can
> cleanly generate from a pw-1.
>
> Question is...what freq(s) should I use, to enable the
> maximum int'l work? Who said he'd mapped the int'l
> allocations?
>
> My first thought is, 1805-1807, on all but contest weekends,
> when I'll be doing something else, anyway.
>
> Input welcome. TIA.
>
> n2ea
> jimjarvis@ieee.org
- -
Jim,
In the last Topband PSK sprint all stations operated around 1807 KHz.
It was interesting to receive QSLs from guys who were amazed how well
PSK worked from their puny low power/poor antenna 160M stations.
It is a neat mode with lots of potential, but will only be successful
if the number of active stations increases. I've made a number of QSOs
on 20 Meters where I was called by stations that were so weak that I
could not hear them and could barely tell that they were there on the
waterfall display, yet I was able to pull out their callsigns. I'm
not saying that it was Q5 copy, but is CW Q5 copy when it is that weak?
Since the 31.25 bauds (about 50 WPM) rate is 2 to 3 times what is
usually sent on CW, there is a better chance of getting calls across
on 160M between static crashes, especially if redundant data is
transmitted.
If you haven't yet tried this relatively new mode, download one of
the many PSK31 programs (Digipan, MixW, TrueTTY, Winwarbler, etc.)
and lock your transceiver on 14.070 MHz and look at all of the
activity in a few KHz. Its amazing how many simultaneous QSOs can
take place in such a narrow window without bothering each other.
The original proposed 160M PSK frequency was advertised as 1838 KHz.
Of course we knew that this was a poor choice and let those using
that frequency know. The 1807 KHz seems a better fit for the new mode.
1805 KHz might be a bit better, but in either case the low end
of the Topband seems to be where to cause the least amout of grief to CW
and SSB operations. And the reciprocal QRM will also be lower at the
bottom of the band.
So what say guys, is there any agreement as to where 160 Meter ops
can use PSK31 without stepping on others' toes?
73 de Rich - K1HTV
dz@voa.gov
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