RadioBanter - View Single Post - We Need a BANDWIDTH-BASED Frequency Plan - NOT Mode-Based.

January 30th 04, 01:56 AM

In article ,
(Steve Robeson, K4CAP) writes:

(Expeditionradio) wrote in message
...

MODE IS NO LONGER A VALID DEFINITION
Due to technology changes, the old definitions of what
a "mode" is are now blurred beyond recognition.

You've got to be kidding me...

Existing band/mode rules are stifling creativity.

Bonnie, are you ON the bands at all?

Steve,

There *is* a valid concern here. Part 97 definitions
do limit the kinds of modes we can use on HF, even
if they are narrow.

For example, we're not allowed
to run datamodes in the 'phone subbands. Not even
narrow-as-heck PSK-31. OTOH, if you can figure
out a way to send voice in a 400 Hz channel, you
have to do it in the phone subbands, even though it's
half the width of an 850 shift FSK signal, which can
be run in the CW/digital subbands.

Want to try out a form of PSK-31 that is, say, 1 kHz
wide but over 1200 baud? Sorry, not legal
on amateur HF/MF below 25 MHz without an STA.
(Might not be legal on 10 - check the rules).

Imagine a mode that is a combination of PSK-31 and
SSB voice, with the PSK carrier where the SSB carrier
would be. Send data and voice at the same time. Interesting?
Yes! Possible? Of course! Legal? No.

ARE WE NOT COMMUNICATORS?
One example of how our present plan stifles communication
is by keeping USA amateurs segregated and actually
preventing us from communicating with the rest of
the world on the 40 and 80/75 meter bands.
Hams want to be able to communicate via voice
internationally on the 40m and 80m ham bands.

Yeah...That wall full of QSL cards attests to how I've been
unable to "communicat(e) with the rest of the world"...

I have 52 DXCC entities on 75m phone and 87on CW. I have 85 DXCC
entities on 40m phone. I am two shy of DXCC on 40m CW. Not bad for
low power and wire antennas close to the ground.

dayum!

HF FREQUENCY PLAN BY EMISSION BANDWIDTH - NOT MODE
If we are to continue to advance amateur radio into
the future, we need MODE FLEXIBILITY.

After one reads through this post they will see that ALL you
suggest, in the end, is dropping specific modes by name. The result,
however, is just an expansion of the U.S. phone bands.

It gets worse...

Don't get me wrong, I completely agree that we can afford to
expand our phone allocations. However YOUR premise is that we enact
your ideas to deter "stifling" of experimentation.

I say widening the 'phone bands as much as is suggested is not a good thing
at all.

In the long run, you're wedging more efficient narrowband modes
into smaller and smaller subbands to the preference of the less
efficient wideband modes...Specifically, SSB voice.

Bingo.

Otherwise, we will be faced with the need to be
constantly generating new proposals to the FCC to
accomodate new technology. The simplest and best
way to solve this problem is to divide the HF bands
according to "emission bandwidth" for better
distribution of spectrum activity.
This will not only encourage new research and
development in modulation techniques, but it will
help amateurs to communicate with each other by
breaking down the frequency/mode/band barriers
which have confounded us on some bands for the
past 40 years.

All you've done is change the language. The application will be
unchanged.

Sort of.

And the FCC has been absolutely wonderful about accomodating new
technologies.

Here is a better HF Frequency Plan for Amateur Radio in USA.

It's nothing of the sort. All you did was change some language
in order to justify expanding the phone bands.

And cutting down the incentive to get an Extra. Note how little
additional spectrum the big E gets under this proposal.

MODE-BASED HF FREQUENCY PLAN USA

kHz
1800 to 2000 any mode 500Hz bandwidth
1830 to 2000 any mode 3kHz bandwidth
3500 to 4000 any mode 500Hz bandwidth
3600 to 4000 any mode 3kHz bandwidth

All this did was eliminate the opportunity for AM'ers to operate,
and also for others who wish to experiment with whatever new WIDEBAND
modes that might manifest.

5MHz channels - mode 2.8kHz bandwidth

No change here. This is exactly what we have right now.

No it isn't! We're allowed USB voice *only* - nothing else - because
NTIA says so.

7000 to 7300 any mode 500Hz bandwidth

No change here. "500hz bandwidth"...?!?! Narrowband data
modes...CW, RTTY, etc.

7075 to 7300 any mode 3kHz bandwidth

You moved the phone bands down to 7075...other than that, no
difference here. Also, you suggest we can't communicate
"internationally", yet the "phone band" goes down to 7030 or
7050...Why, if your intent is to increase interoperability with
Europeans, did you lop it off there?

10100 to 10150 any mode 500kHz bandwidth
10115 to 10150 any mode 3kHz bandwidth

The band here is only 50kHz wide to start with, yet you suggest
we allow phone operations to take up 80% of the band which means fewer
stations on the band at the same time. How is that an improvement?

It isn't.

14000 to 14300 any mode 500Hz bandwidth

No change.

14075 to 14350 any mode 3kHz bandwidth

Again, you moved the phone band down under the guise of deleting
terms of SPECIFIC modes, yet the only mode that's going to move here
will be SSB phone.

18068 to 18168 any mode 500Hz bandwidth

No change here. CW and data, regardless of what you want to call
it.

18080 to 18168 any mode 3kHz bandwidth

Just moved the phone band down again...Do we see a pattern here?

21000 to 21450 any mode 500Hz bandwidth

Yawn.....

21100 to 21450 any mode 3kHz bandwidth

Again...more phone band.

21350 to 21450 any mode 10kHz bandwidth

I must have missed this before.

Why? If you were going to have a 10kHz passband, the lowbands
were the place to do it since that's where most of it exists. This
could only promote FM use here.

Again, why?

24890 to 24990 any mode 3kHz bandwidth

Why no protection for narrowband modes? PSK, AMTOR, RTTY, and
yes...CW.

One guess why CW isn't mentioned...

Might as well just channelize it and wait for Ranger to come out
with a "multimode" radio for it...

Oooops! Pretty much already done!

28000 to 29700 any mode 500Hz bandwidth

Still no change, Bonnie.

28100 to 29700 any mode 3kHz bandwidth

Just moved that phone band down again, Bonnie. Except during
contests, there's ample room all across 10 meters for just about
anything you could want to do already.

28600 to 29700 any mode 10kHz bandwidth

Here you just DELETED wideband capability where it already
exists. This would force existing repeaters to go QRT. Why?

No AM on 160, 75, 40, 20....

NEW AMATEUR EXTRA - ALL FREQUENCIES - ALL BANDS.

Nothing new about that..

Snip.

"NEW GENERAL" and "NEW NOVICE" BANDS
ACCORDING TO THE FOLLOWING FREQUENCY PLAN:

Snip.

BY YEAR 2010, 30% OF ALL HAMS WILL BE NOVICE OPERATORS

How? To reach that level, we'd need about 30,000 new hams per year for
the next six years *and* no upgrades of any of them. If half of them go
for General of Extra, we need 60,000 per year...

no wait, if we get that many, the 30% number gets bigger, so we need
even more newcomers...

Under the new ARRL proposed license restructuring plan,
the number of amateur radio operators on HF will
increase dramatically. This is good.
We need this to preserve our frequency allocations.
We will see a vast increase in the number of "New Novices".

That's what they said would happen when the Tech lost its code
test. We saw a surge for a while, then back to almost the same
level of newcomers as before.

Check the growth of the entire ARS from 1991 to 2000, and compare
it to the growth from 1982 to 1991.

The new Novice operators will be valuable emergency
communicators, so we need to make room in our bands
for them to communicate.

The Novice Class license should be just for that...Novices. When
one has gained experience and confidence in what they are doing, it's
time to move up. Then they will have more than adequate spectrum in
which to "communicate".

Bingo.

Your bandplan only addresses HF. Ninety-nine percent of
"emergency communications" takes place above 50mHz.

Nice try, Bonnie. You're thinking, and that's good, but the
ultimate result was all you did was expand the phone bands on HF where
very little "experimentation" is going on anyway.

There's more to it than that, Steve, but the proposed solution creates
more problems than it solves.

I really do hope we get lots of newcomers, but 30% Novices in 6 years
is kinda optimistic.

73 de Jim, N2EY