[RTTY] ARRL board of Directors meeting this week

[Michael Adams]

I've kept my mouth shut because I'm a fairly new subscriber to the list, and my own views on the subject probably wouldn't be particularly popular here....but I've never been that successful at self-censorship.  So, here's my $0.02 worth.

Something that you might want to consider, even though it's late in the game.... if the League were on the level about wanting to remove the symbol rate limitation (without giving license to spectrum-consuming attempts at HF broadband) while otherwise maintaining the status quo, perhaps they would be agreeable to a tweak to the proposal:

In my comments to the FCC, I suggested that it would be less disruptive to authorize 2.8kHz ONLY for the automated subbands and above.  Below the Pactor playgrounds, it would be reasonable and somewhat in keeping with current practices to set the bandwidth limit at 500Hz.  

(A narrower constraint might be appreciated in the usually CW-only segments of the bands, but I figured a simple counterproposal had a better chance of success.)

That, of course, does nothing to resolve concerns about the non-open-source nature of Pactor 2+, many Winlink users'  apparent inability to listen before transmitting, the limited spectrum available for non-CW operations on 30m, or our apparent inability to adapt among ourselves as circumstances evolve.   However, given the League's stance, the write-in campaign from Winlink users, and the FCC's apparent receptiveness to the proposal (they did, after all, invite someone to propose a new rule in their report to Congress a bit over a year ago, if you read between the lines)... the ship has not only sailed, but it's probably out past the breakwater now.

Efforts at this point might be better spent on trying to get a course correction, rather than trying to reel the ship all the way back to the dock.

73

-- 
Michael / N1EN