On Apr 22, 11:02�pm, wrote:
On Apr 22, 3:52 pm, wrote:

Which would you rather lose - 1 MHz of the 1296 MHz band, or all of
160, 40, 20, 30 and 17 meter bands? Same amount of bandwidth...

That's misdirection, Jim, and ignores the question "What are we going
to do about that?"

It's not misdirection, Hans. It's a plain and simple question, meant
to focus on the fact that not all kHz are created equal.

In 1912, amateurs were legislated to "200 Meters And Down", meaning
they were legislated off what were then considered to be the most-
useful wavelengths.

So maybe the answer is that the FCC should craft a new challenge of
similar magnitude to stimulate the Amateur Radio service to a new
golden age, similar to that which followed the 200-meters-and-down
challenge.

Perhaps.

How about this, for a two step approach?

1) Institute a new "top" license class with a "technical quotient"
about 3 times as challenging as the current Extra class license, and
keep the question pool secret.

I like it! The only problem is, how would the question pool be kept
secret? How could FCC be convinced, after a quarter-century of
published Q&A pools and the VE system, that this new license class
needed a different exam system than all the rest?

*Holders of this license could
experiment on any amateur frequency (with the usual "no deliberate
interference" caveat) with any modulation scheme or information
encoding scheme without special authorization or STA.

The problem I see with that is, who defines 'experiment' or
'deliberate interference'?

I could see the license being used as a way around mode-subband
restrictions, rather than real experimentation.

2) Starting 10 years from the effective date of the R&O, require that
the following band segments can only be used with modulation types and
information coding schemes which were invented in the previous 15
years. *All of 160M. *3550-3600KHz. *3900-4000KHz. *7050-7150KHz.
7250-7300KHz. *14050-14100KHz. *14300-14350KHz. *21050-21100KHZ.
21400-21450KHz. *All of 10M. *146-148MHz. *222-225MHz. *All bands
above 432MHz.

Which means that 160, 10, 220 and all above 432 would no longer be
available for the use of SSB, DSB, AM, FM, RTTY, AMTOR, PACTOR, SSTV,
TV, PSK31, and CW. Plus considerable segments of the rest of the
amateur bands would lose those modes as well. Not by voluntarily
abandonment of old modes but by law.

I don't think that's a good idea. Just because something isn't brand
new doesn't mean it should be legislated off the air.

73 de Jim, N2EY