Reminder to UK hams: we do NOT have the WRC-15 60m allocation (5351.5 - 5366.5 kHz)
I fairly often hear UK CW operators having QSOs with EU ops outwith the UK 60m frequency allocations. Tonight (~2015 utc), it was a certain GM0 on 5353kHz – not a SOTA QSO as far as I could tell. That was a violation of his UK licence conditions.
I know you fellow SOTA ops are wise enough to know that only two of the eleven UK bandlets (5354.0 - 5358.0 and 5362.0 - 5374.5) partially overlap with WRC-15 60m. So, your minimum frequency with CW (A1A mode) should be 5354.1, 5354.5 is the most popular with UK-EU CW QSOs. 5354.0 is fine for SSB (USB of course).
And of course, any violation of our licence conditions also invalidates the QSO(s) for SOTA.
If the “certain GM0” is listed in QRZ.COM I would hope that you sent a brief and courteous email to remind the operator of the bandplan for UK stations as it is unlikely that he will see your posting. I’ve emailed several UK operators going above 5357.950 KHZ when they were using a higher FT8 audio offset. The advice given is usually well acknowledged by most. It’s less of a problem now than it was a couple of years ago though.
He is listed. I haven’t emailed him yet (I’ve been going to bed early exhausted fostering a Beagle cross) and will do so this morning. His callsign doesn’t appear using the “@” feature on this reflector.
Such an email needs to be composed sensitively (not my strongest trait) to avoid an adverse reaction.
