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In an unusually public criticism of contesters by a top IARU official, the President of IARU Region I blasted the conduct of some contesters in the recent 2010 CQ 160 SSB Contest, saying a number of stations from Europe and Africa were making contacts on frequencies not allocated to their countries.
The out of band operations were highlighted by IARU Region I President Hans Blondeel Timmerman PB2T on the IARU Region 1 website, as he directly reminded contesters in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Northern Asia that the bottom of the 160 meter band is not 1810 kHz.
"For a station transmitting in LSB on 160 meters this is below 1813 kHz." wrote Timmerman.
"It was disappointing to notice that numerous contest stations from Region 1 violated their national regulations by transmitting out of band during last weekend's CQ World Wide 160-Meter SSB Contest," Timmerman said.
"While I can have some understanding that the IARU bandplan for top band is not followed during this major contest, I totally disagree that contest stations transmit outside bands allocated to the amateur service," he added.
If you take the 1813 kHz rule from the IARU R1 President, a check of the contest spots shows multiple ops broke the rules during the 2010 CQ 160 SSB Contest by operating on a frequency outside of their amateur radio license.
"Yes, I have some information about out of band operation," said CQ 160 Contest Director Andy Blank N2NT, who said he would be contacting the stations involved.
"We are taking these issues seriously," Blank added.
"QSO's invalid out of ham band," was one of many comments on spots of European stations operating below 1813.
"Disqualifying operation" and "out of band" were two more common comments that weekend as well.
"A behaviour as shown last weekend will certainly not help us in the future," said PB2T.
"I call upon all contesters to reinstate our values."
But there is enough evidence here on some stations to raise questions about their CQ 160 SSB operations, and not just from IARU Region 1.
For example, XE1RCS was spotted several times operating at 1802, 1801.6 and 1801.5. Even though XE stations can operate down to 1800, all of those frequencies could be argued as illegal for ITU Region 2 as well, being too close to the band edge. And obviously, any Region I stations working there would be well out of band.
But that didn't stop several European stations from being spotted on those frequencies at the time that XE1RCS was operating, and some even proudly commented about their spot:
IZ7EVZ 1802 XE1RCS 59++ in south italy tnx 0545 28 Feb
UT7IL 1802.1 IQ8GT CQ WW-160 0148 28 Feb Italy
LY4A 1802.1 IQ8GT 0134 28 Feb Italy
EC1CT-@ 1802.5 EA1YO cq ww 0038 27 Feb Spain
EA1DR 1802.5 EA1YO CQ TEST 0029 27 Feb Spain
One prominent station that was spotted on 1805 was CN3A from Morocco, at a time when TA1ED was running on that frequency from Turkey.
Stefano Brioschi IK2QEI, who was operating at CN3A, provided his log to radio-sport.net, which did not show any contact below 1813, raising questions about that DX cluster spot.
But while there was no evidence that CN3A made any CQ 160 SSB out of band contacts, a review of the CN3A log from CQ WW DX SSB Contest in 2008 did show contacts on 1809 (PJ4E) and 1810 (VY2ZM, V48M, TA2RC).
When the spots hit the frequency of 1810 kHz, the number of Europeans found on the DX cluster jumped quickly, with calls like LY9A, TA1ED, IQ7ML, S56P, YO7LCB, OH8X, S54KS, YO7LCB, ED1R, LZ4TL, OH9JD, S57DX, LY1CM, E77DX, LY4A, CR2X, YP7P and CR6K.
Like the example above with CN3A, OH8X has also appeared in CQ WW DX SSB logs at 1810 before, sporting 2008 contacts with VY2ZM, and S56P (also listed here).
A lot of hams use the 3 kHz rule - that is - you should stay 3 Khz away from the top end of the band when you are using USB, and 3 kHz away from the low end of the band with LSB.
That's the easy explanation for PB2T's Region 1 declaration of 1813 as the lowest permitted LSB frequency on 160 meters for that area.
Not everyone, of course, agrees with that assessment, one reason you might see European and African stations squeezing into the 1811 and 1812 frequencies on LSB during a contest.
The same is true in the US, Canada and North & South America, as stations routinely press closer than 3 kHz to the band edge, something that was also borne out in this year's CQ 160 SSB test.
The notice of PB2T's statement garnered no further discussion on the CQ-Contest reflector and was not mentioned on the Topband reflector either.
It has sparked some comment on the forums at QRZ.com, as hams have criticized those in Region 1 for using frequencies that are not allocated to the amateur radio service.
"Numerous stations were heard from 1800 Kc to 1810," wrote Cor Postma PA5COR on QRZ.com.
"These were not isolated incidents."
The actual logs will be able to show whether or not that's true.
As for how out-of-band contacts can be treated by the CQ 160 Contest log checkers, the rules are straightforward in "Penalties and Disqualification":
"A log may be disqualified for violation of amateur radio regulations," Rule XI states clearly.
"Operating outside the band limit imposed by a licensing authority is not good news," wrote Rich DiDonna NN3W on the same QRZ.com thread.
"I would expect some DQs out of this one," he added.
As shown on the sidebar on the right, it's not that odd for European and African stations in IARU Region I to show up in a log of a station operating at 1810, even though that is a clear violation of the Region I bandplan and their country's license regulations.
With the logs of CQ WW DX SSB available on the internet, it was not difficult to find stations that had gone a little low in the band from Region I.
For example, Jack Danielyan RW3QC, who operated 5B4AII in Cyprus to a 5th place finish in the Single Operator High Power category had a 50 contact run on 1810 kHz from 2012 to 2040z on 26 October 2008, all in violation of both Region I rules and the frequency allocation of the Republic of Cyprus.
Those answering 5B4AII's calls were almost all from Zones 14, 15, 16 and 20. None of them would be legal on 1810 either.
The log of DF0HQ, which was the top European Multi-Multi in 2008, shows its contact with 5B4AII was on 1809 - definitively out of band for both stations.
"For those who aren't following this at all, there is no allocation to the amateur service in ITU R1 below 1810 kc," said Brett Graham ex-VR2BG on QRZ.com.
What do you think about stations working out-of-band in a contest or too close to the edge? Is it something that the contest committees should deal with? Or should one instance be ignored?
What about stations calling CQ? Do they have any responsibility to work or not work a station that is calling out of band?
Send your opinions to radio-sport.net
Van Buren was not on the air from Chile for this year's CQ 160 SSB test, as he was traveling back to the United States on Friday Febuary 26, when a devastating earthquake struck that South American nation.
"I left Chile about 5 hours before the earthquake struck," Van Buren told radio-sport.net, as he summed up his feelings about his timing.
"Very lucky."
"My Chilean QTH is about 600 miles from the epicenter so I'm hoping that there hasn't been any damage there," Van Buren said, with a worrisome qualification.
"I haven't been able to contact anyone in Huasco yet to ask about damage."
So, radio-sport.net grabbed a 166 QSO chunk of the 2008 log of Jeff Briggs K1ZM, who operated from VY2ZM, to see how many European and African stations might have called him on a frequency that might be considered "out of band."
To avoid any argument over what is out of band, this portion of the VY2ZM log shows him running stations on 1810 - which would be a violation for stations in IARU Region I.
Remember - VY2ZM is on a legal frequency in Canada. The stations calling him - in the opinion of the IARU Region I President - are out of band.
Of 166 stations that called in during this log segment, 110 were from Europe and Africa.
