[RTTY] ARRL Bandwidth Petition

Thu Aug 26 15:35:03 EDT 2004

There is probably no mention of a proposed segregation by bandwith on 160 meters by the ARRL, because of their involvement in the recent mini war on 160 meters over separation by mode. I guess they continue to shy away from ANY tinkering with 160 meters.

A small group of hard core CW only on 160 meter operators wanted a CW sub band setup below 1850 kc. They claimed interference of their CW operations by phone operators below 1843 kc, a total lie. They then took their proposal to the ARRL and an ARRL sanctioned "Ad Hoc Committee" was formed to study the idea. 

Unfortunately the committee was made up entirely of pro CW sub band hams ONLY but still the "gentleman's agreement" proposal that came out of the committee was for CW only below 1843 kc instead of below 1850 kc. It was also proposed to do away with the gentleman's agreement 1840-1850 kc phone DX window in existence for many many years.

Well no phone operation below 1843 kc was unacceptable to most phone operators and any phone operation between 1840-1850 kc was unacceptable to CW only operators. Naturally phone operation continued and still does between 1840-1850 kc. 

So the next step by the small group of troublemaking elitist CW operators was to get Riley Hollingsworth K4ZDH to declare that phone operation below 1843 kc, a violation of the ARRL "gentleman's agreement"  VOLUNTARY band plan, had the same force of law as a violation of a Part 97 regulation. Of course a preposterous concept that was ignored by most phone operators, as it is unconstitutional.

Next came RM-10352 drafted by K1ZM and W4ZV. It proposed no phone operation below 1843 kc. The RM sat for 2-3 years and then recently the FCC denied the RM-10352 petition stating that no separation by mode is necessary on 160 meters. The end result is as follows.

CW operators now routinely intentionally and maliciously interfere with phone operations between 1840-1850 kc and also intentional and malicious interference from CW operators of all operations below 1843 kc occurs except CW. Effectively the only operating below 1843 kc besides CW is YES DIGITAL OPERATIONS. RTTY, PSK31, MFSK16, etc. between approximately 1805-1812 kc. So digital mode operators now suffer withering nightly intentional and malicious interference of their operations. Now you see why I spent time on this diatribe.

Unfortunately complaints of the interference to the FCC has fallen on deaf ears. So after 16 years of continuous operation on 160 meters by myself I recently abandoned the band. Hopefully I explained the above scenario from memory without errors and omissions.

73,
Thomas F. Giella, KN4LF
Plant City, FL, USA
Grid Square EL87WX
Lat & Long 27 58 31 44N 82 09 51 98W
kn4lf at arrl.net

Propagation eGroup: http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/propagation
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KN4LF Amateur & SWL Radio History: http://www.kn4lf.com From: Dick Kriss, AA5VU 
  To: rtty-contesting 
  Sent: Thursday, August 26, 2004 1:20 PM
  Subject: [RTTY] ARRL Bandwidth Petition

  Very interesting there was no mention of the 160 meter band in the ARRL
  "Bandwidth" petition to limit bandwidth.

  73, Dick AA5VU

  > ARLB025 ARRL seeks comment on draft "Bandwidth" petition
  ---------------
  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.
  --------------

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