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Steve Bonine · April 23rd 07, 03:18 PM posted to rec.radio.amateur.moderated

wrote:

How about this, for a two step approach? [to the issue of losing spectrum]

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. 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.

How many people do you think would obtain this license? I don't see a
latent demand out there for authorization to experiment with modes that
require special authorization. I'm afraid that the actual result would
be only a tiny number of upgrades, which would serve as evidence that
the amateur radio service didn't need the spectrum it has now.

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.

I understand your reasoning here -- you're trying to encourage use of
new technology via regulation. Again, I'm afraid that it would have the
opposite effect in terms of maintaining spectrum allocations -- the FCC
would point to the lack of usage and use that as justification to
reallocate the spectrum.

Both of these ideas attempt to change behavior of the existing
populatiion of amateur radio operators. I think it's more important to
focus on ideas that expand the population of licensed operators by
attracting new people.

Your focus tends to be showing the regulators that hams are technical
innovators, thus they deserve frequency allocations. My focus tends to
be increasing the overall population of the users to increase the usage
of our allocations, thus justifying them. Both of these techniques work
and can be used at the same time.

I really think that the key is communications, or call it public
relations or marketing if you wish. It has always struck me as ironic
that hams, in a hobby that is basically communications, are generally
horrible communicators. We need to motivate existing hams to actually
participate in the hobby, and we need to get the message out to
potential new licensees that ham radio is an attractive leisure-time
activity for them. Easy for me to say . . . but I've not personally
been very successful at actually *doing* anything.