[SARC] What is the General Band Pland for 20 meters ??

[Dave - KB4ET]

  Hi Chris:
    What John stated is correct and when operating with an amplifier one 
must be careful as an amp is much like a computer, ie: trash in - trash 
out.. A well designed amp will "linearly" amplify an input signal without 
creating any spurious emissions; however, a Tx that is Tx spurious 
emissions into an amp will have those emissions amplified as well as the 
primary signal, even if said amp is well designed. Now, if one has a Tx 
that is "not so clean" going into an amp that is not well designed then one 
has a "mess" on the bands and "spurs" can be detected quite a distance from 
the Tx center freq. resulting in ARRL OO and possibly FCC action. At my 
station I use current state of the art Tx/Rx and ICE filters (cost of 
elect. sw. ICE filter is $300+) into an Alpha 1.5kw amp.. This set up traps 
any Tx spurious emissions (if any) before the amp so a clean amplified 
signal is the final result. I also "tap" my final signal into an 
oscilloscope  so that I can monitor my Tx envelope thus ensuring a clean, 
amplified signal BUT one still has to stay away from the band edges. 73 & 
Good DX
Dave - KB4ET
====================================================================================
----- Original Message -----
From: <mailto:ki4ggh at yahoo.com>Chris Johns
To: <mailto:sarc at oppcatv.com>South Alabama Radio Club
Sent: Wednesday, October 03, 2007 7:56 PM
Subject: [SARC] What is the General Band Pland for 20 meters ??

Hi SARC,

What is the General Band Pland for 20 meters ?? Does the 20 meter meter 
segment for voice start at 14.225 ?? and does the voice segment end at 
14.350 ??

If you answered Yes to the above you are partly right. This is a trick 
question. I had to find out the answer the hard way.

One night last week I was on 14.225 according to my radio dial trying to 
respond to a DX call from Brazil. There was a huge pile up. I never made 
contact with him with only 100 watts and a tribander beam aimed South. I 
attempted about 7 times to make contact and gave up and moved off 14.225 to 
look for more DX.  I didn't think nothing of it until I received a QSL card 
from another Ham in New Jersey.

Why would a Ham in New Jersey send me a qsl card when I was trying to make 
contact with a DX station in Brazil. It turns out that the Ham in New 
Jersey is part of the " ARRL Official Observer Program".  This ham in New 
Jersey heard me calling on 14.225 and sent me a card that stated I could 
not operate on 14.225 with my General License.  What ?

Part of my USB signal drifted into the Extra band according to the 
observer. It is not like I was using an old radio where the read out was 
wrong.

  It turns I was in violation of FCC Rule 97.307b. To sum up 97.307b it 
states that my signal can not go over into the Extra Band because I am not 
licensed as a Extra. I was advised by this observer in New Jersey that I 
must be 3khz from the band edges.  So the REAL and Correct answer to the 
above is I must operate as well as any other General is between 14.228 and 
14.340 for voice.

This brings up another question. If someone uses an amp at legal limit how 
far from the edges should they move ?? and how would you know how far to 
move if your amp is 300 watts vs legal limit.

It is a stupid rule if you ask me. I'm sure there is some reason behind it.

So you better watch out when you get on the HF bands. Extra and General 
class operators could be out of band and not know it. Generals have to 
watch the top and bottom of the band. Extras only have to watch the top of 
the band unless they move to the bottom of the General Band.

73's
Chris
KI4GGH



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