"Paul_Morphy" wrote in message ...
"starman" wrote in message
...

While we're on the subject of the 41-meter international broadcast band,
what is the history behind why this band ended up sharing some frequency
spectrum with the ham's on their 40-m band?


A wonderful post Paul. BTW is your namesake the preeminent 19th C.
American chess player?

Regards,

Grumpus



International frequency allocations are sort of like UN resolutions.
Countries follow them when it suits them, and they vary among the different
regions of the world (diplomats know which fork to use, but when it comes to
discussing ionospheric propagation, they quickly change the subject to WMDs
or some other less-threatening topic). The 40-meter radio amateur voice
allocations for countries outside the U.S. are often positioned _below_ the
voice allocations permitted to U.S. hams. Those allocations are also
somewhat free from SWBC interference. It is courteous of the U.S. to not
allow U.S. hams to operate voice on those frequencies, as there are a lot of
us and we would make a mess of those frequencies, which are also used for
data and Morse code operation.

Some countries have more on their minds than where their SWBC stations
operate, and there's probably a little money changing hands here and there,
too. So a broadcaster in country X can set up on 7100 kHz and blaze away,
subject only to whining from the U.S. State Department. That bureaucracy
can't even keep us out of a war, so we can't expect them to throw much
weight when it comes to broadcasters infringing on "our" ham bands. (Even
though the appointed head of the State Department is the father of the
appointed head of the FCC! The latter just signed off on BPL--get the
picture?)

Looked at from another persepective, all this interference has been a
driving force behind technological innovation. Think of it as the
electromagnetic equivalent of war. If we didn't have to cope with
interference, we'd have no excuse to buy better receivers, filters and
antennas. Take no prisoners!

BTW- The sun has been moving north since December-21st. The days will be
getting shorter in about three months. :-(

Come to Florida (driving on the roads in the winter, it seems everyone else
has!). The listening is fine. You can pick up R. Marti on your fillings.

BTW, it is a fact that Northern Hemisphere propagation improves around the
times of the equinoxes. Someone else mentioned the good conditions last
fall. The Jacobs book on propagation discusses this, IIRC.

"PM"