[RTTY] ARRL attack on current RTTY users

Sat Nov 23 07:09:18 EST 2013

Sometimes you just need to 'sleep on the problem' in order for your 
brain to work on it. I think that happened to me last night.

A number of years ago (5 to 10) I was invited to a meeting with county 
officials responsible for local emergency preparedness. This was a 
meeting held periodically to discuss the progress of the county's 'civil 
crisis' procedures. This is to prepare for scenarios where society was 
on brink of failure. Things like what is done with thousands of deceased 
people if they died within a few days from conflict or disease, etc. 
(The short answer to that question was to identify and tag the bodies 
and inter them in temporary trench graves to await additional 
'processing' after the crisis was over.)

Among the group of county officials (sheriff, medical examiner, council 
members) was the IT manager who had invited me and the local ham radio 
EC group. During the meeting, the status of countywide communications 
came up for discussion. It was stated that *secured communication 
channels would be necessary* and that the appropriate (scrambling) 
equipment was not yet in place but was on order. There was additional 
discussion regarding why a secured system was necessary during a civil 
emergency.

The thought passed through my mind at that very moment "Well that pretty 
much negates any use of amateur radio if secured communication links are 
required. The FCC does not allow cyphered systems on the amateur bands." 
I blew this off until just this morning, when I recalled that meeting I 
attended some years ago.

Now I am wondering whether this "rail job" by the ARRL isn't being 
driven by the "need" to provide that level of encrypted communication 
when necessary. If the gumment can't / won't use open communication 
links during a crisis, that effectively removes the amateur radio 
community from the disaster relief picture.

73 de Bob - KØRC in MN

------------------------------------------------------------------------

On 11/23/2013 12:55 AM, Jeff Blaine wrote:
> I guess this is the thing that has me curious - the end user.  All the 
> years I've been a ham (40?), the rule was that communications could 
> not be encrypted.  That communication was primarily point to point and 
> for the benefit of the hams.  That the language could not be a code 
> type but was an international type.  I guess mixed in there was a 
> war-time tradition of handling message traffic.
>
> If the push for pactor/winlink is really about email (which despite 
> the alternative emcom use claims, email seems to be at the root), that 
> does not really fit in with the traditional ham use of the bands.  
> There are commercial services for email via radio. Opening up the 
> digital bands so guys could play around with that mode does make 
> sense, but only if it's an open sourced format.  I don't use SSTV, for 
> example, but I respect the subgroup of hams who appreciate it and like 
> it.
>
> The real issue that seems to make this approach fall into the "wrong" 
> category is that the mode seems to be focused on enabling the ham 
> bands to service unrelated parties to the communications. email is a 
> commercial venture and does not seem to be a logical extension of the 
> traditional ham use as 1) the volume of data in an email is HUGE HUGE 
> compared to the efficient com of even your rag-chewing guy and 2) the 
> station serving as the hub is simply a relay to another point.
>
> 73/jeff/ac0c
> www.ac0c.com
> alpha-charlie-zero-charlie
>
> -----Original Message----- From: Kok Chen
> Sent: Saturday, November 23, 2013 12:01 AM
> To: Jeff Blaine
> Cc: rtty at contesting.com
> Subject: Re: [RTTY] ARRL attack on current RTTY users
>
> On Nov 22, 2013, at 8:37 PM, Jeff Blaine wrote:
>
>> As I look back at this topic, the ARRL actions and the arguments seen 
>> here are about the same ones as in 1995, but at that time, the 
>> winlink/pactor intention was a bit more obvious.  This time it's a 
>> very low key operation...
>
>
> Jeff,
>
> It is low key, but either (1) they are naive, or (2) they think *we* 
> are naive.
>
> I encourage everyone to take a *close* look at ARRL's petition, as filed.
>
> http://www.arrl.org/files/media/News/Petition%20for%20Rule%20Making%20AS-FILED%2011%2015%202013.pdf 
>
>
> (As with reading patents, where you can skip all the prior-art and 
> stuff and jump directly to Claims.  In the case of this petition, you 
> can jump past all the lawyer talk and go directly to see the proposed 
> changes. That is the part that will affect us in the future, not the 
> explanations and justifications.)
>
> Specifically, go to near the end of the manuscript, where the proposed 
> change to 97.307 (f) (3) are listed.  First...
>
> (A) they removed the requirement that specific digital codes need to 
> be used, by adding a sentence that allows unpublished codes (see 
> 97.309(b)) to be used on Amateur bands!
>
> Currently (before petition), you have to adhere to 97.309(a), which 
> states that the code used in a digital transmission must be either 
> Baudot, ASCII, Amtor (which is a 7 bit extension of Baudot), or if it 
> is none of these, the code has to be *publicly documented* (emphasis 
> mine).
>
> This makes PSK31 Varicode, DominoEX Varicode, etc also legit. While 
> keeps proprietary codes prohibited.
>
> Modern proprietary codes are basically the same as encryption -- they 
> are usually weak encryption but nevertheless protected by the DMCA 
> (Digital Millennium Copyright Act, enacted by Congress in 1998).  The 
> DMCA thus keeps you from being able to reverse engineer proprietary 
> modems in order to decode messages that passes through public Amateur 
> air space.
>
> Notice that by allowing unpublished code, the ARRL modifications will 
> negate the protection we have currently from manufacturers who obscure 
> the protocols and codes that are use in the proprietary modems which 
> they sell.
>
> When you get QRMed, you cannot tell who is QRMing you. Interference is 
> therefore unenforcible, since it cannot even be reported.
>
> The petition then...
>
> (B) removes the 300 baud restriction from  97.307 (f) (3).
>
> That part at least follows the purported intent of the petition. 
> However, the petition goes on to ...
>
> (C) allow bandwidths of up to 2.8 kHz.
>
> Notice that of the changes that I listed above as (A), (B), and (C), 
> *only* item (B) has *anything* whatsoever to do with the purported 
> objective of the petition.
>
> So, why did the ARRL include the changes (A) and (C) that I listed 
> above?!
>
> For those who are curious... as written, the proposed changes to 
> 97.307 (f) (3) allows Pactor 4, among probably some other modems to 
> become legal. Pactor 4 is not legal today.
>
> Before today, I only had the 2004 version of Part 97 on my bookshelf, 
> and held back on commenting on what appeared to be a glaring problem 
> in the petition.  The 2007 copy of Part 97 arrived at my doorstep late 
> this afternoon.  I wanted to be sure that I was not imagining things 
> as related to the current 97.309.
>
> 73
> Chen, W7AY
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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