On Wed, Feb 15, 2012 at 10:05 PM, James F. Boehner MD <jboehner01@yahoo.com> wrote:

This may not be the proper forum to ask this question, but inquiring minds want to know….

We know that the first 60m channel frequency was changed due to the frequent digital transmissions on that frequency, presumably government in origin. Other than that, how often do federal users use the 60 m frequencies we have been granted on a secondary basis?

'73 de JIM N2ZZ

ARRL Vice Director

Roanoke Division

ARRL, the national association for Amateur Radio™

Jim, the sort of fuzzy answer is "not very often, other than on the old channel 3" NJ1Q and WB8IMY recorded activity for ~3 weeks ending Feb. 7 and had this to say about government activity:

In terms of government activity, this consisted exclusively of digital transmissions using unknown protocols. You can hear several recordings on http://www.arrl.org/hf-digital (scroll to the bottom of the page). This activity was centered almost entirely on Channel 1 (5330.5 kHz) and Channel 2 (5346.5 kHz).

Our Zoomerang survey asked about how often people could not find ANY channel available for QSOs, but didn't differentiate between amateur and government users. More to the point in answering your question, we asked:

Have you ever had to stop a QSO in progress due to government usage of a 60 Meter channel?

This drew 289 responses, 42 (15%) of which answered yes.

There was a followup essay question:

On which channels does the problem most often occur? How did you deal with the problem?

The answers are below. Unfortunately when I pasted in the answers the records with blank fields create a line and I didn't discover how to extricate them. You'll note that the busiest government channel is Channel 3, which will be replaced March 5. But all had at least a scattering of reports.

Have fun with your mouse wheel getting to the comments! 73 Bruce K0BJ

1, 3, 5. QSY to another channel

1 - Moved to another channel

Seems like 1 and 2 as I recall but I don't know whether the interference was from a government station or not. I change channels or QRT

Channel 3 is the worst. A few times on Channel 4.

5403.5 (Ch5) Move.

Channel 5

Link 11 transmission on channel 1

Move to another channel

walk away from 60 and go to 40.

ch1, with Navy Link 11 transmissions

Ch. 3. QSY'd

CODAR was present on an adjacent freq.

Quickly QSY'ed to another channel which was not in use.

1,2,3

I cannot recall which channel but when the digital transmissions occur operators just have to wait.

5371.5 seems to be most active ... usually I just go QRT. Sometimes switch to another clear frequency.

3 or 4. Bursts of data quite regularly and strong. CODAR formerly made many channels useless until the Rutgers agreement was reached

CH 3 always has a beaconing data transmission

No, but on occassion I have needed to stop a QSO because of "odd" digital signals on the band. It may have been the government.

Wait until the other signal stops.

I have had QSOs ended by data transmissions on 5366.5 and 5346.5. I Went QRT.

5366.5 always has digital noise and is usless

Though channel 3 has been unusable for a long time.

evening......chg freq.

5260 went to be occupied by primary user

Channel 1 and Channel 3...QSY to another free channel.

Ch3 mostly, ch4, ch5.
Waited until the frequency was clear and then continued.

Depends greatly on time of day. Morning local has more than just after sunset. (Arizona)

do not recall.

don't recall

I go QRT.

2,3,4 I stop operating

For government also read commercial.

It occurred once, and that was several years ago and it was on 5.371.50

Channel 3

ch. #1 ch.#3 Stopped Trans. and looked for open channel.

Channel 3 always busy with digital transmissions. Occassional digital transmissions on Channel 4 - Digital transmissions forced end to QSOs. I QRT'd or QSY'd to another band.

ch 1 move to channel 2

2,3,5, stop xmit

3 & 4

ch5 digital signals blocked out qso
10 percent time, just qrt

ch. 3 5366.5

Ch. 3

4 and 5. Wait until it stopped.

Channel 4 & 5, ceased my operations until channel was clear... usually a digital operation on the gov't side.

Three. QSY'd to 40M

on channel 3 and I and other moved to a different channel or stoped talking