CW v PHONE usage of 160 Metres in Australia
 

Dave's VK3ASE View on 160 Metre Band Plan

Now with the band plan so that more than half of the Australian one sixty meter band is for cw and
narrow band use only (1800 to 1840) all the am and ssb has to fit between 1840 and 1875 .
1843 has become the new am net and if that is in use then 1850 is used,.
After being on 1840 for over 20 years I moved to 1850 a while back so I would be out of the way of all the DX stuff
but now it looks like I will have to move again. It would be better to be down the low end of the dial but that's for cw.
From tests I have done, if a radio can be tuned up to 1850 most can go the extra distance to 1865 I know its a pain
but I think all sets should be retuned so they cover up to 1870 incase more activity has to move up.
1850Khz will still be the primary frequency but if that is not available try 1865 Khz.
Should try to lobby the department to extend the band down below 1800, does not seem to be a lot there.

Lionel's VK3NM/VK6DC View on the same subject

In the early days of 160 Metres the allocation was from 1800 to 1860 Khz with 1825 Khz being the main
SSB/AM calling frequency and seem to be no problems between the CW and Phone operators with the
CW operators using the first 25 Khz.
I used to use 1825 Khz for My SSB contacts and it was the frequency used by the AM coffee break net for
many years and I would slide down below 1825 Khz If I wanted to use CW.
1840 Khz was used if 1825 was busy and most of the crossband sessions used 1840 Khz with no QRM
between stations unless you very close to each other or your receiver has really bad selectitivity.
Later years when the band was extended to 1875 Khz a small number of CW operators demanded
CW only on 1800 to 1840 which caused some friction between CW and SSB operators which was a shame.
It only left 35 Khz for the Phone operators which is not much room if there was a number of QSOs at
the same time on different frequencies.
Perhaps the band could be extended to 1900 Khz as I think any radio that could be tuned to 1875
should be able to extend out to 1900 Khz.

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