Steve Bonine wrote:
wrote:
What *should* be done, IMHO, is for amateur organizations to do the
legwork up-front. IOW,
I think the way to do a proposal is:
1) Gather up lots of opinions from the amateur community
2) Write a draft proposal
3) Present it to the amateur community, with clear explanation of what
is proposed and why.
4) Gather more opinions by means of surveys, polls, etc.
5) Rework the draft proposal based on the input received
6 Repeat steps 3 through 5 until a proposal gets a clear and
compelling majority of support from the amateur community, and the
opposition's points are dealt with.IOW, build a consensus *first*
7) Submit the proposal to FCC, including the survey/poll results.
I suspect that that's what the ARRL thinks they're doing now.
The problem is that on any issue that's controversial, step 6 is going
to be tough, if not impossible. Think of how hard it is to get a
"compelling majority of support from the amateur community" on the issue
of what the code requirements should be for the various classes of license.
Certainly correct, Steve. I think what we need to eventually get into
is that sometimes decisions need to be made, and if we can make them as
democratically as possible, then we have done the best we can. There is
a subculture within amateur radio that sees every change as a life
threatening problem.
I think that the regulation by bandwidth's death was a hint of how the
process could work.
If all that were done, FCC would assign an RM number and then be
flooded with supportive comments. FCC could then easily rubber-stamp
approval of the proposal.
Contentious issues tend to split the amateur radio community into
segments that are unlikely to agree on any single proposal. No matter
what you end up with, there is going to be a significant fraction of the
fraternity that will file negative comments.
You're right, and I sometimes wonder about that. We still have people
complaining about age-old grievances. It would be great to evolve the
service from members carrying lifetime grudges to one in which they
accept what happens and if they don't like it, work to change it - but
give up old battles which mean nothing any more. Kind of like those Hams
that Jim was speaking of who wouldn't test because of wanting to prove
they took a "harder test" than someone like me. Or not upgrading because
of taking the same written that I did when I went from General to Extra.
For example, I have to wonder whether the regulation by bandwidth
proposal died because the ARRL didn't work hard enough for consensus, or
because the amateur radio community is simply opposed to any regulation
by bandwidth proposal. I honestly don't know; perhaps if ARRL had
worked harder for consensus, there would have been less negative
comments filed.
I suspect that there was a lot of opposition to the proposal. I know
most of what I heard or read about was ramifications of what would
happen if it were to be accepted.
Then there are the comments from the NON-ham-radio community. BPL, for
example . . . there are plenty of segments that will file comments
against whatever the ARRL might come up with. There's nothing that they
can do about that.
BPL unfortunately is another nasty kettle of fish. As something that
happens both outside and inside of amateur radio, it will get commentary
from both ham radio and outside users.
But doing it that way takes a lot of grunt work, time, and effort.
Also takes compromise.
And without the compromise, the work, time, and effort go for naught. I
have not observed that hams, in general, are eager to compromise.
You are correct in that. I think that maybe the tide might be turning
in that respect - at least I hope so. In any political atmosphere - and
for better or worse, we are stuck in one - when no one compromises, it
is a great failure mode. If not right away, all we have to do is wait.
- 73 de Mike KB3EIA -