Very insightful, Mike! Especially the use of digital voice, and the
transmission of images on 144 MHz repeaters. That does make sense!
I'm surprised that digital voice in particular is not being played
with much today on HF - that may well be the future of radio right
there, based on the direction the commercial broadcasters are headed.

I would also expect to see much more emphasis on the convergence of
the Internet with amateur radio - IRLP, e-mail servers, wireless
messaging and similar concepts, for example. Handheld radios would
probably have many cellular-like features - text messaging and
built-in cameras, for example.

I am positive that CW would be rediscovered and resurrected by those
who wished to experiment with a historic signalling method used in the
golden days of long distance communication. Special interest groups
would spring up, as they would for RTTY, SITOR and other interesting
though antiquated protocols. However, truly outmoded forms of
communication common today would not exist at all, such as the
repeater phone patch (in an era of cheap cellphones, who would even
think up this one?) For emergency use, a similar interface to the
public network would be provided, perhaps directly to a PSTN operator.
No more personal phone calls, though!).

Without the legacy of all of the current AM, CW, SSB, RTTY etc.
equipment from years gone by, the requirement to fully support these
modes on the new bands would not exist. What modes would be popular
in equipment produced to meet the demands of the amateur service? In
addition to standalone radios (at least for handheld service anyway),
would we see black boxes designed to interface to PC and antenna, with
software to run all manner of digital communication (high speed modem,
digital voice, image transmission, low-res full motion video, etc.)?

I would also anticipate that, in the interest of ensuring compliance
with regulations, that each commercial radio may be designed to
automatically transmit a unique identifier over the air, which would
allow authorities to trace back faulty, out-of-band or malicious
operation to a particular unit. This feature could be coupled with a
built-in GPS receiver, to further aid in localizing the radio if and
when necessary. This may well raise privacy concerns, but it could be
mandated as part of the operating licence, just as mandatory
transmission of the operators' call sign at intervals is today. And,
as we are assuming a brand new service, it would be relatively easy to
do - with no older units to retrofit. What would happen with
homebuilt equipment, though?

With respect to testing, I would anticipate that the regulatory and
operating etiquette sections would continue to exist in virtually
their present form. Along with the addition of more Digital questions
to the theoretical portion of the tests, we may well see questions on
interconnection to the Internet, firewalling and network security.

There may be a new test section on emergency traffic handling, radio
net and message relay operations - this being the most likely premise
that we would be able to convince anyone to hand over all of this
valuable radio spectrum to us in the first place! And given the
priority of national security in our post-9/11 world, there may be a
mandate for the amateur service to link very closely with the various
emergency management agencies, upon governmental request?

I would envision a requirement for perhaps two different licence
levels, though - one for the basic equipment operator, limited to
perhaps 100 or 200 watts, commercially built and type-approved
transmitting equipment only, not permitted to act as control operator
of repeaters. A higher level licence would be granted upon passing
more stringent testing on RF safety and high power operation, repeater
commissioning, internetworking and advanced electronic theory, which
would remove these restrictions.

Either licence level would have full access to all bands and modes,
with no restrictions other than those listed above. The licence
levels are not intended to be incentive based, but to ensure
competence and safety (both personal and public) when installing and
operating multi-user automated-access, internetworked or high RF power
output equipment.

Of course, there is the remote possibility that a Usenet group
dedicated to the endless (and animated!) discussion of whether RTTY
testing should be discontinued might crop up - hopefully very remote


Please add or subtract from this list at will!

73, Leo


On Sun, 04 Jan 2004 05:45:52 GMT, Mike Coslo
wrote:

snip

Okay, here goes:

With a new service coming into play, a major mode would be digital
voice. Repeaters will be allowed, and these repeaters on the 144 mHz
band will also be digital FM, as will HT's. Repeaters and the HT's would
be allowed to send images as well as voice.

Digital non-voice modes would include a PSK mode for typewritten
material, and a high speed packet network would be allowed (remember
that it takes some time to get these things going, and although allowed,
would not happen for some time.

Small portions of each band would be set aside for experimentation, and
here is the place where unusual methods of communication could be used.
This would include things like OOK Morse or other encoding schemes or SSB.

Testing would be quite different that today. The most obvious
difference is that there would be a lot more digital material covered in
the tests. I would envision the basic digital building blocks tested. In
addition, there would be the basic electrical theory and of course those
questions about the various bands. (of course this would be a lot
easier, since there would be less bands to cover) There would also be
questions regarding proper operating etiquette.

A newly formed group, the Radio Readiness Association for Preparedness
(RRAP) is formed, and sets up the first contest/practice run in this
year. Sorry - I couldn't resist! 8^)

One license, one class. 1KW maximum. No Morse code test.

- Mike KB3EIA -