Yesterday, I sent the following e-mail to members of the ARRL Executive
Committee and my director. I urge anyone interested in/concerned about
the future of amateur radio to contact their director and the Executive
Committee to support withdrawal of RM-11708 in favor of a bandwidth
based approach to future allocation:
The issue is that RM-11708 is too narrowly focused - a transparent
attempt to shoe-horn PACTOR 4 into the current rules - rather than a
good faith effort to deal with *all* the issues raised by increasing
use of digital modes in amateur radio.
ARRL and amateur radio as a whole would be much better served by a
"big tent" approach - one that would look at digital techniques as a
whole. The most simple - and by far most effective - approach would
be to simplymodify 97.305(a) to read:
>
(a) Except as specified elsewhere in this part, an amateur station
may transmit a CW, RTTY or data emission on any frequency authorized
to the control operator.
That one simple change would instantly avoid any issue of bandwidth
or symbol rate for "RTTY and data" modes operating in the so called
"Phone" bands (actually, wideband sub-bands).
With one minor change, we could be discussing issues of much more
fundamental importance to the future of amateur radio:
1) what is the appropriate bandwidth in the narrow bandwidth sub-
bands - is 2.4 KHz appropriate if PACTOR 3 can be accommodated
in the wide band sub-bands? Would 300 Hz, 500 Hz or some other
value be more appropriate?
2) what is the appropriate level of disclosure that should be
required for "documented" codes (data encoding) - should
> proprietary and quasi encrypted codes be permitted at all below
200 MHz, below 144 MHz, below 50 MHz?
3) should "documentation" require full disclosure of all encoding,
compression and software algorithms plus release of functional,
> real time,"receive only" software for each of the major
> PC operating systems?
> 4) does the current non-specific wording of 97.307(f)(2) referring
> to the "bandwidth of a communications quality phone emission"
> need to be replaced with a specific value - say 2.8 KHz -
> except for ISB (independent sideband) and AM which would be
> grandfathered at 5.5 or 6 KHz?
> 5) is it appropriate for automatically controlled stations to
> be required to have and use an effective "channel busy"
> detector? Should the operator of any station using a digital
> mode where the "raw" (speaker) audio is not monitored in real
> time be required to have, and use, a "waterfall" or "audio
> spectrum" display in order to "see"/avoid other users on the
> frequency? If such visual monitoring is not present, should
> the control operator required to employ an effective "channel
> busy" detector?
ARRL could take the lead in preparing amateur radio for the 21st
century and beyond with just a little bit of "out of the box"
thinking.
>
In addition, a properly structured proposal should be a win-win-win.
Winlink users get their PACTOR 4 (although on different frequencies
than current operations), CW, RTTY and other narrow band mode users
get relief from the unrestricted automatic (and semi-automatic) RMS
interference, phone operators avoid the threat from 6 KHz wide HF
D-Star and gain a clear path to digital voice modes, while amateur
radio in general now has a clear path for development of mixed,
"phone + data", "image + data", "phone + image + data" modes.
The Executive Committee needs to withdraw RM-11708 and replace it with a
broadly based blueprint for the future.
73,
... Joe, W4TV
On 5/3/2014 1:46 PM, Jim Brown wrote:
I agree with Joe's assessment. I think the League has screwed up on this
thing.
73, Jim K9YC
On 5/3/2014 6:44 AM, Joe Subich, W4TV wrote:
The only thing RM-11708 accomplishes is allow PACTOR 4 - a commercial
protocol for internet and e-mail access that operates at 1800 baud
in a 2.4 KHz bandwidth - in the bands traditionally protected from
interference by wideband transmissions. PACTOR 4 has a crest factor
(peak to average ratio) of less that 4 dB; that is 2 dB less than
PACTOR 3 which is already a significant source of interference it
the upper portions of the "CW and RTTY bands".
In addition, RM-11708 opens the door to STANAG, MS-110 and other
2400/3600 baud 2.8 KHz wide protocols. A single station using any
one of these protocols (PACTOR 4, STANAG, MS-110, etc.) can wipe
out the entire JT65 or JT9 "watering hole" - and most of*both*
on a given band.
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