RadioBanter - View Single Post

February 12th 04, 02:29 AM

On 12 Feb 2004 00:00:02 GMT, (N2EY) wrote:

In article , Leo
writes:

As of our last restructuring,Canadian licences (actually,
"Certificates of Proficiency") are also valid for life - no renewal
required.

If there are no renewals, how does IC know when a ham dies? Or is the
situation like Japan, where the license is only cancelled if someone makes
the effort to tell the govt. (with proper documentation) that the ham in
question
is, indeed, dead, and to cancel the license?

Three ways:

- the family notifies IC that their beloved ham relative is no longer
a user of oxygen.

- someone notifies IC of the passing of the amateur because they want
his or her old call. This method is most popular with the coveted
two-letter suffix ones....

- according to the regs, the license automatically expires on the
125th birthday of the holder.

While the US would not have been an "overwhelming" influence, it still would
have been
a major player. How long could amateurs in other countries have been
effective against government and commercial interests in the ITU if the US
had remained in an "amateur radio black hole?" It is difficult to say of
course but there would have been much less strength available to resist the
encroachment. Yes one cannot say with absolute certainty which way it would
have gone but I do believe that amateur radio would be a lot less common now
if the US had not been involved. Also keep in mind that due to our form of
government, our civilian population (in this case hams) do have more
influence in shaping our governments approach to items like amateur radio
than is and was prevalent in a lot of countries.

I wonder if that is true - the FCC does not appear to have a history
of implementing what the ARRL requests, for example - and they
represent many thousands of amateurs.

Actually the ARRL has a pretty good track record on that account. PRB-1, and RF
exposure, to name just two.

I was thinking more of the incentive licensing fiasco that was
discussed here recently.

Sure, comments and suggestions
are encouraged - but it is not a true democratic process - the FCC is
under no obligation whatsoever to implement the will of the majority.

As was made clear in the 2000 restructuring.

Plus, the comment and review procedure is massive - thousands of
individual public comments and proposals to go through, another round
of proposals and responses, then review, and on and on - a juggernaut
of a process that may well take years to run its course.

It's not really that bad. The various proposals will be allowed to run their
course, comments categorized by a few characteristics, and then the FCC takes
what
it thinks are the best features and makes an NPRM.

They are going to have a bear of a time picking the best features out
of the various proposals and thousands of comments that they have on
hand right now. The FCC has managed to create a massive task out of a
relatively simple issue....

Here, Industry Canada asked our national radio association (RAC) to
gather data on what Canadian amateurs wanted to do with licensing
requirements if the Morse requirement was dropped at WRC-03. The RAC
set up a web page with a questionnaire on it, and opened it up to all
licenced Canadian amateurs (not just RAC members). The results were
collected and tabulated, recommendations prepared, and forwarded to IC
for their consideration.

Which may or may not be a fair process. For example, what protection was there
to avoid multiple "votes" by the same person? What provision for those who do
not have internet access?

One vote was allowed per callsign. No internet access, no vote, I
guess - there was no other cost-effective mechanism for the RAC to use
to poll all of the licensees. Statistically, though, if the sample
group is large and diverse enough, the results should be accurate.

I could speculate here that the amateurs with no Internet access may
well be those most in favour of retaining Morse testing, but I won't

How many of its members did the ARRL poll for their opinions before
they released their proposal to the FCC?

As licensing changes within the Amateur
service do not have an impact on either the general public or
commercial interests, this approach makes sense.

Some would dispute that! For example, if amateur radio were to wither away,
at least some of the frequencies could be reallocated to other services. If
amateur numbers grow like mad, there could be pressure to expand amateur
allocations.

There's also the effect that the loss of amateur public service on the general
public.

I was of course speaking of the dropping of Morse and potential
restructuring of levels and test requirements. These issues would not
affect anyone outside the hobby.

btw, there's a new book out called "10 Days In Utah: The Search For Elizabeth
Smart" which documents the use of ARES (Amateur Radio Emergency Service) help
in providing communications for the search for kidnapped Elizabeth Smart.

Now there is a system that amateurs have direct influence over!

What about the input from nonhams? Or is commentary limited to those already
licensed?

As above, the post-WRC 03 changes would affect only those currently
engaged in the hobby - I believe that no non-ham input has been
requested at this time.

Also, look at how quickly amateurs in Great Britain, Australia,
Germany and many others were able to have the Morse requirement
dropped following WRC-03. No red tape, no seemingly endless
discussion - just done.

A number of reasons:

1) Much smaller amateur populations
2) Much more homogenous (sp?) populations and culture
3) Ground work prepared far ahead of WRC-03 so there was little
doubt of the outcome if/when the treaty changed
4) Much higher percentage of hams belonging to national organization.(in many
countries, it is practically or legally a requirement to be a member)
5) Complete disregard of dissenting opinions.

Or a bit of all of these things. Neverless, they did it - and pretty
quickly too! Without the administrative nightmare that the FCC is in
the middle of. I shudder to think what the review and processing of
the thousands of documents regarding the restructuring of amateur
radio will cost the taxpayer.....

Many did this in direct response to the
request of their own national radio clubs to do so if permitted
post-WRC-03. Now there is real democracy in action!

Only if it can be shown that what the national radio clubs want was really
a majority opinion! I recall reading that a survey of German hams showed
that a majority wanted the code test to stay - but they were overruled.

Well, if the local administration sets their rules up to match the ITU
standards, then a change in these would result in a change in local
standards. It ain't necessarily a democratic process - they weren't
removing rights to operate from anyone, simply dropping a testing
requirement.

And the number of countries who have made this change is only a small
percentage.

I don't see the correlation to numbers here, Jim - these are entire
countries that are changing their own regulations. As time passes
more and more are getting it done. Just today, Denmark joined the
club!

If the ARRL can be faulted for anything in this restructure thingie, it's that
they did not have a proposal ready to go in mid-July of 2003. Everyone knew
that Wrc-03 was going to happen, and that the chances were very very good that
S25.5 would change. So where were the surveys, discussions and proposals before
WRC-03?

Good point.

There is a second and very major fault though - did the proposal for
restructuring that the ARRL recently submitted to the FCC come from
the members, or the ARRL BoD?

According to The Wayback Machine, it wasn't commercial interests that
wanted control of these bands post-WWI (all radio bands, actually!) in
the US - it was the US Military. The ARRL did a fine job of lobbying
the US government to have the frequencies reopened to US amateurs -
but I don't think that the rest of the world would have walked away
from amateur radio forever if the ARRL had been unsuccessful. And, in
the absence of the ARRL, other alliances may have been formed to lobby
for this right - just like they did in the rest of the world.

I did indeed mean to include military. Sorry about that. In the context of
lobbying the US government for keeping amateur frequencies and re-opening
them after WWI, I do believe that in the absence of the ARRL another body
could have formed (and probably would have) and done the same as the ARRL.

I disagree. One of the key factors was that the pre-war ARRL directors put up
money to restart the League, lobby in Washington, restart QST and ask the old
membership for help. It was because they had a base of operations already
established that they were able to get going again quickly.

For a modern-day example, look at the BPL situation. Does anyone think that
unpaid volunteers working in their spare time could do the work of W1RFI and
others in making observations, gathering data, preparing serious engineering
commentary, coordinating with other services, and all the other things needed
to fight the "professionals" who want BPL?

What other group of hams could do what ARRL has done in the BPL area?

Good point - that is definitely a worthwile project. But the ARRL is
not involved in the research on BPL that is in progress up here....for
one.

In the US example, I'd suggest that if BPL is killed off it will
likely be due to the objections of the broadcast interests, the
Military and the various emergency management and security divisions
within the US government who claim that HF band interference would be
a problem for homeland security or emergency management. Whether or
not BPL messes up a hobby group's activities would come in at a much
lower level of priority, I'd think.

Not necessarily fact, but that is what I've gathered so far.

But you know what, we would then be having this same discussion of "ZZZZ"
organization and the people who today slam the ARRL would be slamming the
"ZZZZ." The rest of us would then be defending "ZZZZ". Same game,
different names.

But Dee, other governments re-opened the amateur bands after WW1
without the assistance of the ARRL - in many foreign countries.

How many?

Don't have a number at this time - stats on this are hard to find!
Some histories (like Japan, for example) suggest that there were
numbers of experimenters prior to the implementation of licensing - no
records of how many exist!

Remember too that there were no "amateur bands" in those days. Amateurs were
simply assigned wavelengths shorter than 200 meters at the whim of the
governments.

Yup. Sorry, wrong phrase!

Note also that amateur radio did not exist as a separate radio service, but
rather as part of "experimental and educational" stations. IOW, stations that
could not be classed as marine, military, government, or commercial.

And although other govts. may have allowed their hams back on the air, when it
came time to have international conferences (1924, 1925, 1927), many of those
same countries proposed rules that were so restrictive as to essentially
eliminate amateur radio.

And the ARRL fixed that for them? That was nice.

I'm
neither praising nor slamming the ARRL - just stating that their
achievement was a local, not a global, one. Canadian hams were back
on the air months before the ARRL's victory in the US - I'm sure that
others were as well in various places around the world.

Such as? Most of the histories of amateur radio in other countries start in the
1920s.

There were unlicensed experimenters in several places. Licensing for
many began in the 20s, but there were already folks engaged in
experimentation....

Seems natural
enough - activities were suspended due to the conflict, and reinstated
after the hostilities ended. Not everyone's military tried to keep
the bands indefinitely for their own private use!

In many countries there were no or very few hams before WW1.

At least licensed ones, anyway!

But would they have had enough clout in subsequent ITU conferences to stave
off the commercial and military seekers of the bands. In any disagreement,
you don't want the strongest player sitting on the sidelines or playing on
the other side.

I don't see why not - the ITU voting structure isn't that heavily
weighted based on the size of the US - otherwise, they would be in
business strictly to globalize US policy. Or, countries like China
could assert that as they have 4 times the population of the US, they
should control 4 times as many votes. Countries like Japan could claim
that they have 3 times the number of licenced Amateurs, and monopolize
the process. If that were the case, how many countries would have
remained members of the ITU? None, I'd say.

Each country gets one vote.

That they do!

Just one, regardless of population or commercial interests
represented. Real democracy in action!

73 de Jim, N2EY

73, Leo