My two cents:
1. On this one, ARRL did all it could. Joel Hallas' post pretty much
says it all.
2. I'm glad W8JI was successful well before now in his quest for
manufacturers to clean up their key clicks. From here on out, I do
not see any incentive for manufacturers to care one way or the other
about the CW envelopes their transceivers will be producing, QSK or
whatever. But now we have Yaesu, Ten-Tec and Icom with first-class
rigs that do not mess up the spectrum and pretty good QSK. We owe
W8JI a vote of thanks for what he's accomplished.
3. K4IA noted on eHam.net that if Technicians want to enjoy the new
spectrum privileges they have on the HF bands, they will have to use
CW. If they want to use phone, they'll have to upgrade to General. So
there is a built-in incentive in the FCC's regs for continued use of
CW by newcomers. I like that.
On another subject, the FCC has carved out a 15 kc segment of the 80
meter CW band just below 3600 for all this Pactor/WinLink stuff.
Seems a good place to put those stations which otherwise could cause
problems.
Finally, it looks to me that Bill Cross of the FCC is looking forward
to retirement. He has taken all of the tough issues and dealt with
them. He will leave quite an impressive legacy, IMHO. I know I'd be
ready to go after this latest burst of activity.
73,
John, W3ULS
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