Campaign time!

Well, after a bit of a hiatus in contesting during the lockdown period, RTTY contests seem to be back in fashion again - as is their habit of stamping on WSPR transmissions.

This is something I've been complaining about for a long time - and made only modest progress with.  Calls a couple of years ago for those who populate the WSPRnet chat room to support change led to little if any response, which was particularly regrettable.

Yet, I am certainly not alone.  EURAO, the rapidly-expanding, pan-European radio society, has already published clearer band plans some time ago, with clear warnings about those parts of the bands where WSPR resides. 

And then there is the JTDX software, which prevents users from transmitting the digital modes it supports (sadly, not RTTY), on frequencies where WSPR is found.

Where RTTY supporters will always lose their argument against protecting WSPR is in the fact that, regardless of where they operate from, it will almost universally be the case that knowingly transmitting over existing transmissions is a breach of licence conditions and, by extension, law.

On the flipside, those who developed WSPR should have, in my view, negotiated with regulators before launching it to the world, that such a permanently-used beacon mode should properly be placed and protected in the beacon portions of the bands.  I am not aware this was ever done, nor that any attempts have been made in the years after its release.

I regret to say that each and every attempt to contact Joe Taylor about this has met with total and utter silence, and I have long ago understood he does not wish to engage.

If you find RTTY stamping on WSPR - which only uses a very tiny part of each band and is easily avoided without consequence - equally irritating and wrong, then please do write poitely to each RTTY contest organiser and your national society.  Some organisers will be helpful, but many will be anything but.  National societies are likely to do nothing until sufficient numbers complain, and in many cases, will not care very much about a mode they wrongly perceive as 'pointless'.