[TenTec] FCC Letters for "Enhanced SSB"

[Paul Christensen, Esq.]

Note that I, W9AC, am one of four culprits named in the article.  Absolutely
fascinating considering the fact that I have not operated on SSB of any kind
since October, 2002.   I am primarily a CW operator and spend less than 1%
of my time on SSB.   The fact that I authored some of the audio enhancement
mods may have contributed to the issuance of the official Notice.  So, where
is due-diligence on the part of the FCC when and where it's needed?

I am an advocate of the mode (one band, on one frequency), but not the
manner in which the FCC is arbitrarily issuing Advisory Notices based on one
man's personal opinion rather than on a Notice based on a legal memorandum
of law.  I have challenged the FCC to produce any case law, particularly
appeals to that effect.

The "Notices" were issued, because the FCC realizes that a citation based
solely on a violation of "good operating practice" as prescribed under
97.307 et. seq., will never, ever, pass Constitutional scrutiny as it will
not meet the two-prong procedural due-process test.

That said, his time and for that matter, tax-payer dollars are better spent
on enforcing clear violations of the rules (e.g., 75M obscenities, 2M
repeaters that do not identify, etc.), rather than arbitrary and capricious
personal "opinions" on how to operate a station.   Note that no specific
reference to a rule is applied against the operating practice in question.
Disseminating a letter that tells us to "read the rules" is a bit silly when
no convincing violation is occurring.

In the future, you will see action taken to the League, for the League is
the most appropriate place in which to add this activity to the existing
ARRL band plan....the same band plan the FCC uses to judge other
mode-related operating practices.  AMI successfully added a calling
frequency to the band plan and soon enough a new calling frequency will be
added.  The logic is axiomatic: if AM transmission falls within "good
operating practice," then taking an AM signal (from which we derive SSB),
cutting it in half, and eliminating the carrier, must also represent "good
operating practice.  The argument I often hear is "Because that's the way it
is," or  "because that's the history of AM and SSB."  But if we examine the
issue for what it truly is, a matter of bandwidth, then the FCC's logic
simply fails.

Quite honestly, the FCC does not care about the root issue.  Recall, that
the FCC's Bill Cross, W3TN has repeatedly stood before a group of us and may
I paraphrase: "The FCC will no longer rule the amateur radio service by
fiat."  The FCC is reaching out to add, alter, and delete rules.  The FCC
currently places weighted emphasis on the League's band plan as the
appropriate place in which to reference all operating modes....and I
maintain this is where reconciliation is required.  Codifying bandwidth
rules will only hurt the amateur radio service.

So, what does any of this have to do with Ten Tec?  Well, if you're an owner
of a Jupiter, Pegasus, or Orion and your SSB transmit menu indicates
anything more than 2.4 kHz audio bandwidth, guess what?  That Advisory
Notice could have had your name on it instead of mine.

73,

-Paul, W9AC


----- Original Message -----
From: "Gary Hoffman" <ghoffman at spacetech.com>
To: <tentec at contesting.com>
Sent: Thursday, April 17, 2003 20:17 PM
Subject: Re: [TenTec] FCC Letters for "Enhanced SSB"


> Excellent !
>
> 73 de Gary, AA2IZ
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "W2AGN" <w2agn at w2agn.net>
> To: <tentec at contesting.com>
> Sent: Thursday, April 17, 2003 3:55 PM
> Subject: [TenTec] FCC Letters for "Enhanced SSB"
>
>
> > The ARRL Web site notes that several "widebanders," a wide SSB
> > emission that has bothered HF-Pack operations on 17 meters, have been
> > put on notice by the FCC's Riley Hollingsworth:
> >
> > " 'Enhanced SSB' Bandwidths 'Extremely Inconsiderate,' FCC Says (Apr
> > 17, 2003) -- The FCC has sent advisory notices to four enthusiasts of
> > what's become known as 'enhanced SSB'--the practice of engineering
> > transmitted single-sideband audio to ..."
> > Complete article at
> > http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2003/04/17/102/?nc=1
> >
> >
> > ---
> > +-++-++-++-++-+   John L. Sielke
> > |W||2||A||G||N|        http://www.w2agn.net [UPDATED]
> > +-++-++-++-++-+    Ex-K3HLU,TF2WKT,W7JEF,W4MPC,N4JS
> > _______________________________________________
> > TenTec mailing list
> > TenTec at contesting.com
> > http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/tentec
> >
>
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