[RTTY] ARRL Bandwidth Proposal

[Skip Teller]

The ARRL Executive Committee has just published the proposed ARRL petition to segment the
bands by bandwidth instead of by mode.

You can read the news release here:

http://www.remote.arrl.org/news/stories/2005/04/13/1/?nc=1

It might be a good idea to figure out how it will impact RTTY contesting and DXing if the
FCC agrees and then send your comments to bandwidth at arrl.org and to your Division Director.

My own suggestion is to demand that the proposed petition be changed so that ALL unattended
or automatic operations are ONLY allowed in areas where transmissions over 500 Hz are
allowed.

It is important to realize that significance of the 200 Hz, 500 Hz, and 3000 Hz thresholds
is that no signals wider than the threshold are allowed higher than the threshold
frequency, but that signals more narrow than the threshold are still allowed wherever the
wider signals are allowed.

In practical terms, this means that Winlink could still use Pactor-II (500 Hz wide) where
Pactor-III (2400 Hz wide) is used during the time Winlink was transitioning from Pactor-II
to Pactor-III and SCAMP.

Disallowing unattended transmissions, where either end of the link is unattended, would
eliminate the QRM from Pactor mailboxes to CW, PSK31, RTTY, MFSK16, and other digital
modes, that is currently such a problem, without harming Winlink's ability to handle their
150,000 emails for their currently 0.7% of the US hams.

73, Skip  KH6TY