[RTTY] Fw: ARLB025 ARRL seeks comment on draft "Bandwidth" petition

[Don Hill AA5AU]

I read this as a good thing.  Anyone else?

Don AA5AU 

-----Original Message-----
From: rtty-bounces at contesting.com [mailto:rtty-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf
Of Dave Hachadorian
Sent: Wednesday, August 25, 2004 5:38 PM
To: rtty at contesting.com
Subject: [RTTY] Fw: ARLB025 ARRL seeks comment on draft "Bandwidth" petition

RTTY/Digital mode ops will find this proposal interesting.
Follow the hyperlink for details.

Dave Hachadorian, K6LL
Big Bear Lake, CA
--------------------------------
SB QST @ ARL $ARLB025
ARLB025 ARRL seeks comment on draft "Bandwidth" petition

ZCZC AG25
QST de W1AW
ARRL Bulletin 25  ARLB025
>From ARRL Headquarters
Newington CT  August 25, 2004
To all radio amateurs 

SB QST ARL ARLB025
ARLB025 ARRL seeks comment on draft "Bandwidth" petition

The ARRL wants members' comments on a planned petition to the FCC seeking to
regulate amateur subbands by bandwidth rather than by mode. The ARRL Board of
Directors adopted the petition's guiding principle in July 2002 and wrapped up
its review of a draft petition late last month.

"The main objective is to make appropriate provision for digital modes in the HF
amateur bands, while preserving amateurs'
prerogatives to use the traditional modes," said ARRL CEO David Sumner, K1ZZ.
"Regulation by Bandwidth" is the title of Sumner's "It Seems to Us . . ."
editorial in the September issue of QST.

The ARRL Executive Committee decided to make a synopsis and explanation of the
petition available to ARRL members before filing it with the FCC. The idea is to
give anyone interested in the issue a chance to better understand the ARRL's
proposal and the rationale behind it--mainly creating a regulatory environment
more accommodating to newer technologies.

"The regulation of emission modes in Amateur Radio Service allocations is a
limiting factor with respect to Amateur Radio experimentation," a synopsis of
the petition concludes. "It leads to attempts to put new technology into a
regulatory framework that was designed only to deal with older analog
emissions." In order to implement digital technologies, an underlying assumption
in the League's draft petition is to provide for an intermediate
bandwidth--between what's needed for the legacy CW and phone modes--in the
middle of certain bands.

As drafted, the ARRL's bandwidth petition would preserve double-sideband AM
unchanged, but it would stop short of opening the phone bands to digital and
other modes of the same bandwidth.

FCC rules now permit RTTY and data emissions throughout the HF CW subbands,
although informal agreements typically keep RTTY and data signals out of those
parts of the CW band generally used for CW. The ARRL's petition proposes to
limit bandwidth in the CW subbands to 200 Hz, which also will accommodate data
modes such as PSK31.

In addition, the League's proposal would limit bandwidth in the existing
"RTTY/data subbands" to either 500 Hz or 3 kHz, with phone emissions
specifically prohibited in certain subbands where 3 kHz would be permitted.
Under the proposal, these would include 3650-3725, 7100-7125, 14,100-14,150 and
21,150-21,200 kHz.

"The reason for this is to encourage the development of higher-speed data
communications in these subbands by preventing them from becoming de facto
'expanded phone bands.'" Sumner explained.

The new proposals take into account the ARRL's prior "Novice refarming" petition
to expand some HF phone bands, included in the FCC Notice of Proposed Rule
Making in WT Docket 04-140.

Amateurs typically won't have to be able to measure the bandwidth of their
signals, Sumner says, since the bandwidths proposed are more than sufficient for
"clean" signals using traditional HF modes.

The ARRL proposal would eliminate bandwidth restrictions in the
222-225 MHz band--beyond a requirement to keep signals confined within the band.

Sumner encouraged ARRL members to review the synopsis of the petition and the
specific rule changes the League plans to propose.
It is located on the web at,
http://www.arrl.org/announce/bandwidth.html.

Direct questions or comments--favorable or otherwise--via e-mail at,
bandwidth at arrl.org.  ARRL staff members will respond to any questions, while
comments will be forwarded to your ARRL division director. Members also are
welcome to comment directly to their ARRL directors, of which a list can be
found on the web at, http://www.arrl.org/divisions/, and also listed on page 15
in QST.
NNNN
/EX





















.
_______________________________________________
RTTY mailing list
RTTY at contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/rtty