subject, that is, policy.

So far, I have four comments:CCW N4AOX wrote:
wrote in message
oups.com...
"Acting on the premise that the amateur bands must flexibly and
comfortably accommodate present and future operating modes and
technologies over the long haul, the ARRL Executive Committee has
reached consensus on recommendations to the ARRL Board of Directors
for
a regulation-by-bandwidth proposal. Meeting April 9 in Denver, the
panel adopted recommendations that will form the basis of a draft
ARRL
petition to the FCC seeking to govern the usage of amateur spectrum
by
emission bandwidth rather than by mode. The proposals remain only
EC
recommendations at this point . . . "

http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2005/04/13/1/?nc=1

- - - - - - -

This nonsense needs to be killed FAST and killed NOW. It represents
gross overregulation. It's HQ trying to fix a system which isn't
broken. Again. It's time to rise up against it en masse.

w3rv


I would like to see a comprehensive discussion of this proposed rule
making
without it degenerating into name calling. This could revitalize a
newsgroup that is overdue for getting back on

1. What experience and expertise do seven or eight old men (ARRL EC)

.. . . this isn't degenerative . . ? . . never mind . . .

in
Newington have, to qualify to make policy for the conduct of Amateur
HF
operations? Let's see their operating logs or other evidence for
the past
year where they have made 5 contacts per week avg. in the
CW/Data/AutoData/Voice intersection areas in the subject bands they
are
including in their proposal. OK, let's make it easy, just show
logs for
just SWLing those areas for 2 1/2 hrs per week. If they cannot
produce,
then they should be excused from making policy on such far-reaching
implications.

They've all been licensed and active in varying degrees for years.
Specific, personal activity levels and mode experiences completely
aside they are senior members of the League hierarchy who make policy
recommendations and decisions. What matters and all that matters is the
policy proposals they come up with and whether or not thee, me and the
rest of the ~670k of us support their propsals. Or not.

2. While it may appear to be "overregulating" as someone pointed out,
I take
the opposite view. K1ZZ says "Oh, bandwidth is too hard to define,
let
alone measure, so lets just "say" we are going to restrict AutoDATA
to 3.5
KHz and Semi-Auto DATA to 500 Hz, but we won't require measurement
for
verification.

That's not what he said but the net result is the same and it's
unacceptable. If the name of the game is mode separation by bandwidth
then the bandwidths obviously have to be specified in detail and
enforced. These "gentlemens agreement" and "self-regulation" non-rules
worked pretty well in days of yore but in today's world they're shaky
at best and hopeless anachronisms at worst.

First of all, does anyone have a copy of the current rules and regs
for
AutoDATA and Semi-AutoDATA operation on HF? I've been away a while,
so
someone please point me to that in the Part 97. Let's get that
established
first.

I don't know if it's carved in stone in Part 97 or if the
"listen-before-transmitting" rule falls into the nebulous collection of
"good amateur operating practices" but it's out there and the unmanned
mailbox-type stations are all in violation of it today. The proposal
recommends herding these modes into specific small slices of the bands
which is one piece of it I agree with.

For instance do those stations have to identify in CW or Voice(AM or
SSB) at any time?

They identify with whatever mode they're using. As long as the FCC
monitoring facilities can decipher it.

So how about some clear rules and regs for conduct of the
Auto and Semi-Auto stations.

Like what?

Second, if they are going to refarm on "bandwidth", should not
"bandwidth" be redefined to a quantifiable measure? K1ZZ claims
that
bandwidth is not necessary to measure, that it will be
self-regulating.
Yeah, sure wink, wink!
This works on voice HF where you can tune over to
the offending frequency and say "QLF", "QSY or QRT". Have you ever
tried to
tell an unidentifiable robot station that it is running too broad a
signal?
It is almost as difficult as telling K1MAN to QSY.;-) Everyone knows
that
there is always great pressure to open up the bandwidth and increase
throughput on DATA. Soon you will soon find the HF AutoDATA's going
to 16
KHz and Semi-AutoDATA's going to 3.5 KHz. If you ever do catch up
with the
offender their retort would be: "But, hey, bandwidth is ill-defined,
and I
don't have to measure it, so sue me!"

Been covered.

3. Am I prejudiced? Yes! My experience, living with AutoDATA's
operating
in the 7.100 to 7.105 MHz for a few years was this: While I am trying
to
work new novices and give them a new contact, in the only part of the
novice
band not savaged by Foreign Broadcast, while gearing down to 5-10WPM,
these
Auto Cowboys would fire up on our QSO. If you called CQ on "their"
frequency, they would turn you in to the FCC.

Which would do nothing about it. CW would still be allowed from the low
edges to high edges of the bands just like it is now.

Their idea of "sharing" in
the HF band was about the same as K1MAN's or W1AW's idea of sharing
their
bulletin frequencies. So, in effect, is the ARRL EC campaigning to
give the
Auto Cowboys their exclusive non-sharable subbands throughout the HF
spectrum?

No, that's not what's being proposed at all. See the proposal.

Take a look at K1ZZ's chart and add up the total AutoDATA
bandwidth across the HF spectrum. Now will we have the
Semi-AutoDATA
operations spreading out from there? Hmmmmm!

There's a whole lot more to this bag of worms than just the
auto-mailboxes.

4. Lest I be labeled a Luddite, I think that a robust Amateur HF
Data
Network across the nation, managed by dedicated Hams, could be the
center-piece for revitalizing or defending our reason to exist as a
service
in the public interest.

That would be nice but unless something very new pops up I don't think
it's a realistic expectation. The history of the rise & fall of the NTS
and the rise of the Internet and it's effects on ham radio is the
reality today.

My own beefs against this proposal are two-fold: Very seldom in the
history of regulation has a thicker rulebook generated an improvement
in the long run. The IRS code is a shining example. Secondly it is my
opinion that modes should to be allowed to duke it out on an equal
basis to sort out which survive and which can't stand the heat and
disappear. With some common-sense limitations like we have today like
the lower edges of the phone bands.

If you roll back to the 1950s a whole plethora of HF phone modes showed
up on the bands and competed with the then-standard AM. We had NBFM,
double-sideband suppressed carrier, single-sideband suppressed carrier
and variants on those. It was a helluva competitive joust spread over
about ten years.

In the end we basically got what we have today: SSB, a few AM stations,
and later some SSTV, etc. The general approach to allowing unfettered
competition worked back then and I don't see what has changed enough to
essentially toss the whole works and start over just because some users
of HF digital modes have shown up on the bands in the past few years.

Seems to me that this proposal is another result of the League being a
whole lot more excited about HF digital modes and their impacts on the
bands than the rest of us are.


--Clay
N4AOX

w3rv