A recent discussion on Mastodon brought up the fact that many Europeans aren’t making SOTA and POTA voice contacts with US operators on 40m and 80m because of the band limits. Depending on the licensee’s privileges, they may only have a small amount of spectrum available to use.
In Region 1, the 40m band runs from 7000kc to 7200kc. In the US, General-class licensees have voice privileges from 7175kc to 7300kc, leaving on 25kc in common with Europe.
In Region 1, the 80m band runs from 3500kc to 3800kc. In the US, General-class licensees have voice privileges from 3800kc to 4000kc, leaving no overlap.
CW and digital spectrum overlap nicely between all regions.
So, when selecting a voice frequency on 40m and 80m, consider your intended audience and maybe try operating in the common spectrum when you can.
Actually, CW isn’t that clean, either. US stations complain bitterly about the digi signals between 7040 and 7060. Unless I’m mistaken, in both region 1 & 3, that is the digi sub-band. Thus, region 2 (The Americas) is the minority “odd man out”. Yes, it’s only a gentlemen’s agreement in most administrations, but if we expect the digit-heads to stay out of our allocations, we should extend them the same courtesy. I think IARU are working toward a global standard - good thing, as no one has ever fully explained to me how to make my signals drop in a heap at a regional boundary
I recall from a while back, that USA SSB stations would transmit in the range from about 3803kHz to 3810kHz. EU stations would then work them SPLIT, transmitting in the range 3795kHz to 3800kHz, or thereabouts.
Of course, most of this was QRO with large antennas. And I not sure about the finer points of the various licence (or license) regulations regarding this type of operation.
Unsurprisingly, from time-to-time, the odd EU station would inadvertently transmit above 3800kHz. Worse still, other EU stations would then go above 3800kHz to say: “You’re transmitting outside the band old man”
On balance, not a viable option for SOTA, I would imagine.
The only time that I worked a USA SSB station on 40m, he was a contest station calling above 7.200 and tuning 7.100 to 7.200. That’s possibly the only way it would work for SOTA, and probably QRP would not hack it given the QRM levels this side of the pond.
