RadioBanter - View Single Post - Let's debate: Should Amateur Radio be made a free for all?

May 10th 04, 01:16 PM

(Steve Robeson K4CAP) wrote in message ...
Subject: Let's debate: Should Amateur Radio be made a free for all?
From: Alun
Date: 5/9/2004 8:03 AM Central Standard Time
Message-id:

If you are right, then the US will be the last country with a code test,
decades after it no longer exists anywhere else. I don't think it will take
that long, though.

I was afraid of this.

Despite supporting Code testing, I am also of the mind that once the
majority has spoken, it's time to move on.

Which majority?

What happened at WRC-2003 was *not* the abolition of code testing.
Instead, the treaty was modified so that each country decides for
itself what its code testing requirement will be. A country can have
no code testing, some code testing, or universal code testing for an
amateur license, and still be in accordance with the treaty.

This may seem a semantic point but it's not. A sizable number of
countries insisted on the wording that was finally adopted.

They could have pre-empted all this by stating something to the effect of
"based upon recent previous commnets on the subject, we are suspending the
requirement for Element 1 for access to HF licensure"....But noooooooooooo...

The majority of comments to 98-143 *supported* code testing. In fact,
the majority of comments to 98-143 supported *at least* 2 code test
speeds. Based on the majority of those comments, we'd still have at
least 12-13 wpm.

Look at the comments on the various petitions since July - what is the
majority saying?

Firstly, I think the reason they didn't go for a memorandum report and
order is more mundane. They don't care about any catfight because they
don't care about amateur radio, period.

They really don't care about ANY radio, if you pay close attention to
thier "thought processes" in other actions, Alun. I really don't think there
are too many people up there who have a clear picture of what's going on in
ANY radio service.

Perhaps the view is that they regulate "communications", not
"radio"...

Secondly, I don't think they will wait for any more petitions.

Sure they will! They are BUREAUCRATS! They are all about" petitions,
applications, hearings, and the PROCESS of administering...They are poorly
prepared to deal with the EFFECTS of thier actions!

It's not a question of waiting. It's a question of when the petitions
stop coming in. Anybody can file a petition - that's the American way.
Unless the petition is clearly "not serious" (such as several similar
petitions from the same person or group in a short period of time),
FCC *has to* deal with them. Which takes very little in the way of
resources - that's what ECFS and the FCC computer system are for.
Biggest resource drain is that somebody at FCC has to read the
petitions and comments. That's a lot less of a task than writing an
NPRM and rules revisions, and all the research connected with same.

Thirdly, I think that when the dust settles they will just do what they
were going to do anyway. Eliminate Element 1.

Maybe. Or maybe not. If a resounding majority say they want Element 1,
things might go differently.

Months and months later.....

1) Re-farming the Novice frequencies an increasing the phone allocations.
Here there is already an NPRM, and I think they will carry it out. It just
gives the same amount of additional spectrum to phone as is now Novice CW.
This is what they are going to do. It's less than I wanted, and even less
than the ARRL or the NCVEC asked for, but I'm betting it's all done;

I dunno.....

There's been what...a half dozen petitions in the last five or six years
asking for the same thing and the FCC keeps thumbing thier noses at it...I
don't understand why since the Novice license hasn't generated much interest
since 1987

Whole bunch of reasons. One is the "nobody loses" thing - where do the
Novices and Tech Pluses go if the "Novice bands" become 'phone?

Another is the basic reason we have subbands-by-mode in the first
place. If the US phone subbands are widened, there's less room for CW
and the data modes. It amounts to rewarding the use of
spectrum-inefficient modes, and penalizing the use of
spectrum-efficient modes. And the DX 'phones will move still further
down the band to get away from the US QRM.

2) Eliminating supefluous licence classes. They will ultimately just do the
obvious, i.e. give Novices and Advanceds a free upgrade.

Why?

They won't revive
the Novice and kill off the Tech. They will view that as a waste of time.
The FCC is all for simplification, and they will point to the petitions as
providing the consensus they were looking for, even thought they are
slightly different.

Maybe.

I really doubt they will "upgrade" the Novice since it's rapidly withering
to nothingness...The Advanced...?!?! Maybe, but a lot of the Advanced guys see
THIER license as being the last readily evident class as having been
13WPM/Old School tested and want nothing to do with "upgrades".

Such thinking about the Advanced is faulty, of course. From 1990 until
2000, the Advanced was available with 5 wpm code via waivers. And
after the restructuring of 2000, someone with valid CSCEs for 5 wpm
code and the Advanced writtens could get an Advanced *without* 13 wpm.

The big questions about free upgrades are simply: What's in it for
FCC? What does it really cost them to keep 'legacy' license classes on
the books?

I think the answer to both questions is "not much!"

73 de Jim, N2EY