International Amateur Radio Unio

HF Committee Newsletter

No. 52, May 2001
by Carine Ramon - ON7LX

The Region 1 EC has proposed that we should have an informal meeting of the IARU Region 1 HF committee in Friedrichshafen during the Ham Radio Meeting from 29-6 till 01-7-2001. The HF committee meeting will take place on Friday afternoon from 13.00 till 17.30 hour.

The goal for this meeting is to have an exchange of ideas based up on the discussion papers of the cancelled Vienna meeting and possible additional papers. Please note that the discussions at this meeting only can be a preparation for the Region 1 Conference in San Marino next year and that no formal decisions or recommendations can be adopted.

If you want to add other documents, I would like to receive them by electronic form no later than 3 June 2001 so that I can organise everything in this short time.

Let me remember you the documents received for the cancelled Vienna meeting:

a) EDR document:
Hello Carine
For the upcoming interim HF-comittee meeting EDR would like the following item put on the agenda:
Band-planning on 160m during contests.
I am writing a paper which I will forward to you in a short time.
vy 73
Hans, OZ5DX
HF manager EDR

b) VERON document:
Dear Carine,
A possible agenda item for the HF Meeting in Vienna could be the WRC 2003 agenda item "realignment of allocations around 7 MHz"
I suggest that either SP5FM or LA2RR gives us an update on what has been achieved in CEPT/ERC/WGFM and ITU/SG8/WP8A. I also suggest that they provide guidelines to the Amateur Radio Societies how to instruct their national administrations on this 7 MHz subject.
And something for the newsletter: The Dutch administration agreed on an extension of 160 meters to 1880 kHz (old 1850 kHz) with a maximum power of 400 Watts. The change will come into effect in the spring of 2001.
Kind Regards,
Hans, PA7BT
VERON HF Manager

c) SARL document:

SOUTH AFRICAN RADIO LEAGUE
MEMBER SOCIETY OF THE INTERNATIONAL AMATEUR RADIO UNION REGION 1

P O BOX 1721 STRUBENSVALLEI 1735 SOUTH AFRICA
TEL (011) 675-2393 FAX (011) 675-2793
EMAIL sarl@intekom.co.za
Visit the SARL website at www.sarl.org.za

18 August 2003

Carine Ramon, ON7LX
HF Manager, IARU Region 1
Bruggesteenweg 77
B-8755 Ruiselede
Belgium

Carine,

AMENDMENT TO THE REGION 1 HF BAND PLAN: 10 MHZ BAND

Following discussions held during the HF Forum at the SARL Annual General Meeting it was decided to request IARU Region 1 to amend the HF Band Plan for the 10 MHz band for Region 1.

Referring to the HF managers Handbook (November 1996) and the IARU Region 1 HF Band Plan, as adopted at the 1996 General Conference, the remarks for the 10 MHz band reads, “The band segment 10.120 to 10.140 MHz may be used for SSB transmissions in the area of Africa south of the equator during local daylight hours”.

The South African Radio League would like to amend this remark for the 10 MHz band by removing the words ‘during local daylight hours’ and replacing them with the words ‘twenty four (24) hours per day’.

The 10 MHz band provides good and reliable communication between the southern provinces of South Africa (ZS1 and ZS2) and the northern provinces (ZS6). The band is often used to communicate when neither the 40-metre nor the 20-metre bands can provide reliable communications, especially between Cape Town and Johannesburg/Pretoria. It is often found that when the SARL national bulletin is broadcast on a Sunday, the 40-metre transmission does not reach the ZS1 and ZS2 areas, and 20-metres goes right over them. The 10 MHz band then comes into its own and provides these call areas with good reception.

It is felt that this band would also provide acceptable communications during the local periods of darkness. The use of the segment 10.120 to 10.140 MHz for SSB in the area of Africa south of the equator will not interfere with the utilisation of the band in Europe and other parts of IARU Region 1. With the small segment available on the 40-metre band (7.000 to 7.100), this allocation would help to relieve the congestion on that band and provide good long distance communication opportunities, not only in South Africa but also in other countries south of the equator.

Therefore the South African Radio League would request the mid-term HF Conference in Vienna during 2001 to consider the amendment of the remarks to the 10 MHz band.

The remark at present reads:

“The band segment 10.120 to 10.140 MHz may be used for SSB transmissions in the area of Africa south of the equator during local daylight hours”.

And it is proposed that it be amend it to read:

“The band segment 10.120 to 10.140 MHz may be used for SSB transmissions in the area of Africa south of the equator twenty four (24) hours per day.”

For the kind consideration of the HF Managers meeting in 2001.

Greetings,

Dennis Green

Dennis Green ZS4BS
HF Manager and Band Planner

d) CSG document:

Hello Carine,
For the CSG, the main issue these days is formats for contest logs from logging software. About 15 months ago, the ARRL published the specification for a new standard - they called it Cabrillo. This replaced the former ARRL Suggested File Format for QSO records. It is now mandatory for all ARRL contest, and logs in any other format will be treated as checklogs. The main changes in Cabrillo are
1. Summary Sheet data and QSO data are combined in a single file.
2. 2. QSO data is closely defined - each field must be placed within specified columns.
3. The QSO records do not have any indication of dupes, or multipliers or points.
Item 3 needs more explanation. The ARRL has developed its own log checking software which has two components. The first is to independently check each log against an up-to-date database of country/prefix references. This reference database (or simply, a file) is readily available. It's the file CTY.DAT, maintained by Jim Reisert AD1C, and used by all (or nearly all) contest logging programs as the basis for identifying countries from callsigns, and applying points and multipliers as appropriate to each QSO. I use it myself for SD. Before the advent of contest logging on computer, unmarked dupes were penalised severely. Now, with ARRL's software, they simply don't matter - they will be scored with 0 points and no penalty. The second component of ARRL's log checking software is to combine and cross-check all the logs - and to disallow QSOs, and impose penalties, where logs do not match. I had hoped that Cabrillo would be a model for all contest organisers to follow. In particular, it's good to have a single file from each entrant, and it's good that they (the ARRL) independently check and score each log. However, Cabrillo does have limitations and is very much USA-oriented. In many respects it's little more than an updated ARRL Suggested File Format. I believe it's very unlikely to become a general-purpose format, to be easily adopted by other contest organisers.
In the meantime, you know that DARC proposed their own new format - with particular reference to the WAE contest, including records for QTCs.
I, personally, have suggested that any new standard for contest logs should be based or derived from ADIF. However, this idea has not been well received by either ARRL or DARC, although the RSGB will now accept ADIF logs. Now that the majority of contesters use computers to log, another issue has arisen. It's simply that contest organisers cannot unilaterally announce significantly different log formats unless they first have the cooperation of the contest logging authors.
Here's a copy of some recent correspondence from K8CC, author of NA.
>Cabrillo *was* invented for the ARRL. Nobody else has to use it. However,
>there are few organizations in the world (DARC included) whom independent
>software writers will expend effort to support with unique
>standards. Maybe I'm just being too "American" here...if so, forgive me.
>I refuse to discuss this with anyone but contest sponsors or logging
>software writers. These are the ONLY opinions that count. I will defend
>the right of the contest sponsors to demand what they will, but I will also
>refuse to implement that which is stupid, and will support other software
>developers in a similar way.
The (contest logging software) user's opinions don't count - they just buy our software and push the button. However, the name of the game for any contest sponsor is to attract both activity and entrants - that's the only real measure of the influence or success of the contest - particularly the international ones like UBA or WAE or IOTA. DARC is no different to ARRL in wanting to reduce the post-contest work of dealing with logs in many different formats - I'm sure you've plenty of experience with this in the UBA contest. The difference lies in the fact that ARRL is larger and can make its standards stick - not least because most of the major contest loggers are American.
To summarise, I propose that "Contest Log Formats" should be on the agenda for the meeting. There must be something that we in R1 can do towards the acceptance of a format that would ease the pressures on contest sponsors. If you like, I can prepare a more detailed paper, or distribute a newsletter on the subject. Please let me know what you would like.
73,
Paul EI5DI

I am looking forward to meet you all in Friedrichshafen.

73 de

Carine Ramon - ON7LX
Chairperson