[RTTY] ARRL Board Meeting - Approved modified HF band plan changes

Michael Adams mda at n1en.org
Wed Jul 22 13:40:37 EDT 2015


Peter N5UWY wrote:

> Now the ARRL wants the FCC to upgrade Techs again by adding
> data modes to that expanded HF CW spectrum again with no 
> additional testing.
> 
> What is the point of having different classes of licenses if we 
> simply keep moving privileges down into what is supposed to be 
> the entry-level class?  

Perhaps that's one of the reasons someone (formerly?) at the FCC speculated on eventually only having one license class.

Personally, I view the proposed expansion of privileges as one possible response to two questions:

1. Why don't more techs upgrade...or even become active?

2. Are the old novice band HF CW privileges an anachronism in an era where code is not a prerequisite to licensing / where new CW ops generally get interested in code only after spending some time on HF?

If one possible answer to the first question is "they get stuck on 2m and never have their potential interest in HF whetted", and if new hams are learning code only after being exposed to HF.... updating the novice-like privileges to be more digital-focused rather than CW-focused makes a certain amount of sense....even if I'm dreading the mess that a gung-ho non-elmered tech could cause if they had access to a few popular frequencies. 

The current arrangement seems backward: "you can try HF and see if it interests you if you operate CW...but you probably aren't going to learn code until you've discovered you're interested in HF".

I don't know that the concept will actually prove successful...but it should be a bit easier to identify and perhaps coach a messy "novice digital" op than it is to identify an Winlink operator who didn't bother to listen before initiating a Pactor or Winmor call.

-- 
Michael Adams | N1EN | mda at n1en.org



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