On 2/16/12, Chris <w3kd@aol.com> wrote:
Bruce, I think that informal monitoring study could lead to inaccurate conclusions about Federal use of the band, which we can't really afford to underestimate. 73, Chris W3KD
No doubt, whatever the usage level by government is (and the Zoomerang survey implies it happens more than rarely) we need to maintain our record of QRTing when the primaries start up. Hams who use narrow filtering on cw/digital need to be especially alert for such use; this point is made in the Recommended Practices document and the upcoming QST article. Having not operated on 60M and barely SWLed there I shouldn't pontificate. But it seems like government usage of our channels might be at that awkward occasional level where most of our people don't get experience dealing with primary user activity. That's good for our ability to conduct QSOs consistently but demands that we practice vigilance for those occasions when government is QRL. Bruce