In article . net, "KØHB"
writes:

I don't think it's "inescapable" --- in fact, I think it's incredibly
far-fetched to expect that...

1) ...1% of all of us would be on the air transmitting at any given moment,
and....

That works out to 1 hour and 22 minutes of transmitting per week per ham.

2) ... even if we were, that more than a fraction of that 1% would be heard
at any given QTH,

Very true!

presuming they're somewhat evenly distributed across the
available 3,750 kHz of spectrum.

That's the really far-fetched part. Distribution won't ever be even or even
nearly so, by frequency or time. At 2AM local during sunspot minimum, the 1700
kHz of 10 meters isn't lilkely to be full of signals.

I consider myself a reasonably active licensee, perhaps more active than the
average. Other than contest weekends, my transmitter is actually ON THE AIR
transmitting a signal perhaps no more than 60 minutes a week. That's less
than 1% of the time that you could hear on the air, propagation permitting.

Well, there you have it. Some would say an hour a week is reasonably active,
others would say it's quite inactive, etc. YMMV

If everyone were as active as me, it would take 168 hams transmitting (and
presumably another 168 listening --- total of 336 hams) to keep a single
frequency occupied 24/7.

And that's the point - everyone isn't even as active as you (on noncontest
weekends)

Now if we suppose that on average, each ongoing
QSO occupies 1kHz of spectrum (phone takes up more, morse and data take up
less) we'd need 1,260,000 (336 x 3750) active hams to keep all frequencies
QRL 24/7.

Exactly! And the bands aren't anywhere near that busy - even on contest
weekends.

Of course this presumes that every QSO would be heard everywhere,
but thanks to the magic of RF propagation, we are able share most
frequencies geographically, and in fact more than two stations can
simultaneously use a single frequency.

And then there's things like roundtables and nets.

So much for your 'inescapable' conclusion!!!

bwaahaahaa



73 de Jim, N2EY