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Author Topic: 4085 KHz, good choice or not?  (Read 3886 times)

Offline Looking-Glass

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Re: 4085 KHz, good choice or not?
« Reply #15 on: December 19, 2018, 1515 UTC »
Over this way I note some Asian CW and voice traffic in the block 4.000 to 4.100MHz with some of the CW traffic being Chinese military.  There is also a Philippines station active on 4.090MHz USB from time to time speaking in broken English and Tagalog.

Quite appears to be "empty/unused" on one side of the world can be the opposite elsewhere. 8)
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Offline Beerus Maximus

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Re: 4085 KHz, good choice or not?
« Reply #16 on: December 20, 2018, 1623 UTC »
My opinion: we have it so easy these days to get the word out about a broadcast on a new/unusual frequency so that others can tune in almost instantly. HFU forum log posts, as well as the very excellent HFU Rocket Chat system (which hopefully everyone here is using!) plus the fantastic capability for SDRs to 'spot' signals where radios with knobs aren't looking.

I remember in the 90s there being quite a sense of crisis when the old favorite pirate frequency of 7415 became crowded by strong SWBC stations and then eventually WBCQ took the frequency. Where would pirates go, and how would listeners find them? Maybe some enterprising DXer would be spinning the knobs enough to stumble over a new frequency, and report it to the A*C*E, where other readers might find out about it... 45 days later. Eventually 6925 became the new 7415 but it was not an easy time for pirate DXers during that transition.

We're a lot better off these days with tools on the listener side (SDR) and lines of communications in real time between listeners, and listeners and ops, at no cost. I'd also mention that we are a fairly tight community, and fortunately a lot of trust issues (to say things diplomatically?) that festered over the last decade or so have more or less dissipated as certain individuals have dropped out of the scene; pirate operators can feel reasonably comfortable dropping by the forums, or the chat, and mentioning that they are on the air. Hey, don't even tell us what frequency, maybe finding you would be part of the fun... so in other words, the chicken/egg problem Chris describes can be fairly safely overcome with some careful communication by the operator. 

The nice thing about 4085 is that a lot of people are going to have antennas already for 75m and will be well suited to receive your signal, and perhaps even join in on the fun.
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Offline TheRelayStation

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Re: 4085 KHz, good choice or not?
« Reply #17 on: December 20, 2018, 2135 UTC »
i had a great experience using 5150Khz but the length of the horizontal dipole caused dependability and reliability issues as it kept breaking during wind and/or ice.
i think 5150-5200Khz (taking care to stay out of the 60m amateur band and keeping a sufficient "guard band" from 5130Khz) is a good compromise between the lower end of 4Mhz and the upper end of 6Mhz, you get the best of both propagation worlds, day and night plus, getting "noticed" is easier since WBCQ is at 5130Khz.
perhaps someday soon, I'll see if i can better support a horizontal dipole for 5150Khz but for now, 6880Khz will have to do until then.
« Last Edit: December 20, 2018, 2137 UTC by TheRelayStation »
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Offline Josh

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Re: 4085 KHz, good choice or not?
« Reply #18 on: December 21, 2018, 2243 UTC »
It's not like 7415 and 5130 are in use all the time.
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Offline TheRelayStation

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Re: 4085 KHz, good choice or not?
« Reply #19 on: December 22, 2018, 0056 UTC »
It's not like 7415 and 5130 are in use all the time.
not to throw this topic "too off topic" but you reminded me of a time during the weekday when i decided to broadcast for a few hours at 5130Khz when WBCQ was not broadcasting, matching the exact AM bandwidth used from WBCQ (slightly higher than 10Khz) and relaying their audio stream for 5130Khz, not a single person realized it was not WBCQ but an "imposter"  ;D
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Offline Josh

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Re: 4085 KHz, good choice or not?
« Reply #20 on: December 22, 2018, 0102 UTC »
You cheeky barsteward!
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