On Thu, 10 Dec 2015, analogdial wrote:

Mike K. wrote:

Frankly there's so little "real" broadcassting left on HF that letting folks play pirate for a hour or two every now and then is unlikely to cause problems. I'd be all for even officially allowing folks to put out shows on shortwave without a full broadcast license. Maybe the airwaves would come to life again and SW would be fun like it used to be.

Mike

Let someone like the National Park Service administer the shortwave
bands. Seriously. The shortwave bands should be treated like a
national resource, available to everyone.

That's funny, that's why the FCC exists.

In the early days of radio, everyone was jammed into a small segment of
the spectrum, because going higher was difficult for the technology,
indeed deemed "useless".

Of course, initially there was little use for this lab curiosity, but use
(by ships and hams) started to show things that could be done. But the
user base was much smaller, lots hadn't been considered yet.

SO the ships at sea complained about the hams, and the broadcasters wanted
their space. Initially odd rules came into effect, I seem to recall the
US had one about hams having to have a quiet period during prime time in
the evening.

So laws gradually were brought in, because otherwise it would be a jumble.
It's the fact that things are regulated which allowed for growth. SO
after WWII proved a lot of new spectrum and technology, tv went off like a
rocket, with a massive spectrum segment (because tv sets at the time meant
adjacent channels couldn't be used), and then later UHF channels were
added. All kinds of two-way radio added. There was that Class A CB in
the late forties, then 1958 CB as we knew, it which had to be carved from
existing space, as is the case for most new radio services added.

Technology kept improving, allowing more use of the higher frequencies,
and new uses for radio kept being invented, to make use of those new
frequencies.

A lot of spectrum is devoted "to the people", ie broadcast radio. But
there is CB, FRS, places where license free transmitters can be tried,
MURS, various places for radio controlled transmitters.

Amateur radio still exists because it was there at the beginning, the
sourec of so much that came later. IT is the free-est radio service there
is, you can build transmitters, you have lots of leeway within the ham
bands, you can do all kinds of things and modes, and none of it requires a
license change. I could run full power when I got my first license here
in Canada in 1972, a kilowatt. The cost is knowing something about the
technology, and the rules.

But in reality, everyone uses radio far more than they realize.
Cellphones use a lot of radio frequency, the cost being a lot of
infrastructure to make efficient use of those frequencies, so everyone can
have their cellphone. Circa 1970 (and obviously way before that) there
was no space for the masses, not unless they wanted to talk only half a
block. Cellphones fix that, infrastructure so everyone can be talking on
the radio without interfering with others.

If radio was "free", then nobody could say anything, because everyone
would be interfering with everyone else.

Michael