Carl R. Stevenson wrote:
wrote in message
oups.com...

Carl R. Stevenson wrote:

[snip]

Bandplans and band usage are complicated issues where the ARRL or anyone
else is highly unlikely to be able to please everyone - the objective
needs
to be to work with the different interest groups towards compromises that
allow us to get to something that at least a significant majority can
accept
and say "I can live with that." If I become a member of the ARRL BoD I
would work with all of the interested parties in an effort to forge that
sort of result.

With all due respect, that's what everybody says. The trouble is with
the specifics. You've given us some good specifics, like support of a
'reasonable' subband for Morse Code only, and a similar 'reasonable'
subband for 'robots'.
The devil is in "what's reasonable"?

The way I see it there's probably no way to please everyone
100%.

That's a given.

Therefore, I think the solution is to work with all of the
interested
"camps" to forge a compromise that at least a significant
majority can accept.
The optimum balance is probably something that will
result in all of the
"camps" being able to say "It's not perfect in my
ideal world, but I can
accept it and 'sign up' to support it."

Definition of "consensus".

However the specifics are where the arguing will be.

I think the suggestion from the CW folks for a modest
"CW only" segement at
the bottom of the band is reasonable and would ease a lot of
concerns about getting "squeezed out of existence."

Yup.

Would also tend to gather up the activity rather than spread it out.

I think that the proposal that some have made to "repurpose"
the "refarming"
of the novice bands to provide a "digital playground" for the
experimenters
who want to develop, test, and operate the higher speed, more
robust digital
modes that the emergency management agencies want is also
something that merits consideration.

There was an ARRL proposal some time back to "refarm" the Novice bands
- which was just a slick way of saying "use them for SSB". Some of us
(including both you and me, IIRC) commented that a better use would be
to create that "digital playground", where all modes except analog
voice/image would be allowed - with primary priority to digital modes
not allowed elsewhere.

I agree that "robots" should not be allowed to take over the
bands at the expense of all of the other modes.

Or even *any* other modes.

All of this would require some degree of compromise, but I
think that's what
will be required to formulate something that gains widespread
acceptance instead of massive resistance.

Key question: Will the digital playground include the robots?

Biggest problem: Convincing FCC to accept moving the Novices and Tech
Pluses down into the "General" part of the band.

For example, suppose 80 were "refarmed" like this:

3500-3575: Morse Code only
3575-3675: Digital and Morse Code, bandwidth less than 1000 Hz
3675-3725: "Digital playground" - all documented digital modes
(including Morse Code) regardless of bandwidth.

Extras have the whole band
Generals and Advanceds have all but 3500-3525
Novices and Tech Pluses have 3525-3575

In addition to significantly improving the
general level of technical
knowledge and skill of hams,

That was a prime reason for "incentive licensing"
40 years ago!

I'm talking about improved educational programs ...
it's clear that
"incentive licensing" created a huge schysm in
the amateur community and
hasn't really worked.

I think the big problem was that the causes of the apparent
problems were misunderstood.

There was a time when, to be a ham with an effective station, you
needed to a pretty good mix of technical knowledge, skill, and other
resources. There wasn't much manufactured equipment for hams, and what
did exist was very expensive by the average incomes of the day.

And what hams used not only had to be inexpensive, it had to be usable
without a lot of test equipment.

Then as technology, manufacturing and affluence advanced, more and more
hams simply bought their equipment. And as the reliability improved,
and operation simplified, the need to know how it all worked went down.
And those who were less technically inclined found it easier to be
hams.

For quite some years now we've had rigs that require almost no
technical knowledge to operate. No tune-up, no critical adjustments,
self-protected against many operating errors. And so complex that most
*professionals* wouldn't try to build one or even fix one without a lot
of specialized test gear and information.

Incentive licensing couldn't reverse that trend. How will voluntary
education programs do it if the hams themselves don't want it?

And remember all those arguments used against the Morse Code test? Most
of them can be used against the written tests as well, particularly the
General and Extra writtens.

(I think part of the
problem was linking increased
voice frequency privileges to the totally unrelated Morse test

The original ARRL proposal would have only required a written test.

Remember too that at the time (1960s) there was a real need for Morse
Code proficient radio operators.

But most of all, consider that for the unrelated privileges of the
bottom of four HF bands, Generals had to pass *two* written exams.

and the other
part was that it created in too many people's minds the idea
that the
license meant you "knew all there was to know" - thereby
removing the
motivation to progress even further.)

Nope.

Long before incentive licensing, there were hams who thought that
because they passed the test they were fully qualified. I recall hams
who, when they passed the General, would sell their Novice setup, buy a
manufactured transceiver, give away their Handbooks and other
materials, and consider themselves "done" with the serious learning of
radio.

growing our numbers (both licensees and ARRL
members), protecting our spectrum, and getting more people trained for
and
involved in emergency communications, one of the MOST pressing problems
we
face is to reverse the trend of "compartmentalizing" ourselves into
"factions" whose whole world revolves around one mode or one activity,
because the resulting "turf wars," suspicion/mistrust/paranoia,
in-fighting,
and attacks on each other divide us in ways that both are bad for the ARS
as
it's seen externally and bad for the ARS internally as we get along with
(or
don't) each other.

We should ALL be "hams" (period) and work together cooperatively and
constructively going forward into the future on the truly important
issues
facing ham radio and the ARRL.

The trouble is that ham radio covers such a wide range of activities
that there's trouble finding common ground in some cases.

The common ground should be that we're all hams - with
recognition that
different people have different operating interests and
cooperating instead
of always being so defensive and turf-war oriented.

Agreed!

For example, you have folks who want to use
equipment and modes that
are
decades old, and folks who think anything
less than their concept of
SOTA is "obsolete". Folks who want more room for SSB
(and even "hi-fi
SSB") and folks who want more room for digital.
Folks who don't even
have a computer in the shack and folks who never
actually listen to a
signal (they watch it on the waterfall display).

Appliance ops and homebrew-from-scratch folks.
DXers, contesters,
ragchewers, emcomm folks. Those who are stuck with
compromise and
stealth antennas and those with tons of aluminum aloft.

How do you get all those folks to see that there is
value in what each
of them brings to the table?

Education, encouragement, and, in severe cases, peer pressure
(through the
clubs is one way) to "play nicer together."

ALL hams should treat each other with
respect and courtesy, regardless of license class or operating
preferences.
Experienced hams need to welcome new hams with the spirit of patience and
helpfulness that "Elmering" embodies, rather than treating them as some
inferior form of life.

As mentioned before - that goes both ways.

That's true ... newbies shouldn't "cop an attitude" and neither should OTs.

Works for me!

73 de Jim, N2EY