In article ,
(Brian Kelly) writes:

(Expeditionradio) wrote in message
...
An updated version of the entire article "A Bandwidth-Based Frequency
Plan", is
no available on the web at:

http://www.qsl.net/kq6xa/freqplan/

Please refer to the new updated color chart of the frequency plan.

Did that. For one your "30M bandplan" would require both ITU and FCC
approval to implement. Good luck with that one Bonnie.

And that's just the beginning.

It equitably distributes the space within the allocated band so that
approximately the same number of narrowband 500Hz signals vs wider
bandwidth signals can share the precious spectrum resources.

IOW the 'phone bands are drastically widened and the CW/digital bands
drastically narrowed. Also, the incentives to upgrade are reduced, the
spectrum available for modes wider than SSB is reduced.

Keep in mind that the plan is mode-neutral.

No, it isn't.

If you can use technology to shoehorn a voice into 500Hz,
then
you can transmit it anywhere in the band. You may laugh, but my experience
working with commercial DSP digital modulation systems proves to me that it
can happen in Amateur Radio.

Of course it can. But will it? If the 'phone bands are as drastically widened
as
proposed, why should anyone bother with 500 Hz processed voice when they
have so much room for regular SSB?

In our present mode-based system in USA, we have a lot of nearly-dormant
band segments.

On HF? Where are they?

When the number of HF operators doubles overnight,

*IF* the FCC buys into anything like the recent ARRL proposal AND
drops anything vaguely resembling that proposal on Hamdom USA MAYBE
the number of individuals licensed to actually get on HF MIGHT double.
All of which is pure conjecture right there and is a real stretch at
best.

More like wildly optimistic.

We currently have about 324,000 US hams with General, Advanced or Extra class
licenses. Also at least 130,000 with Novice, TechPlus and "Tech-with-HF"
licenses. If even a small percentage of them were on HF at any one time, the
bands would be full to busting.

What is not conjecture is the fact that there is no statistical
evidence which indicates that simply having a license to operate HF
somehow equates to those with any new "giveaway" HF ticket actually
putting together HF stations and getting 'em on the air on a 1:1 new
license privs/band occupancy ratio.

BINGO!

And that's not going to change much.

Quite the opposite is being demonstrated in fact. We already have tons
of experience with, for example, the recent huge increase in the
number of Extra Class licensees which fell out of the reduction in the
code test speed for Extras.

And the reduction in written testing for Extra.

I tune the Extra 75/40/20M phone setasides today and the recently
enfranchised don't seem to be there. In volume. If anything the
overall activity level in those setasides is noticeably down from what
it was long before the code test speed was dropped.

Don't forget sunspots.

we will no longer
have the luxury to waste spectrum as we have in the past.

When was spectrum ever "wasted"? Is that why AM is so restricted in
this plan?

The problem with HF ham radio, if there really is a problem, has
nothing to do with whimsical "bandplans" like yours, "we need space .
. sombody might eventually do some 10Khz wide digital voice modes" or
any of the rest of it. The dead spectrum problem has far more to do
with getting the HF-enabled of all flavors off the Internet, off their
dead butts, geting the radios, actually putting the HF antennas up and
getting on the air than it does with any "bandwidth-based frequency
plan" sorts of things.

HEAR HEAR

And *THAT'S* where the problem really is! Fiddling with licenses is
only going to have a minor effect on that, if any. License changes
aren't going to fix anybody's CC&Rs, or suddenly improve the
sunspot number, or empower vast numbers of existing hams to
figure out how to end feed a wire and actually get on the air.


73 de Jim, N2EY