Topband: RM 11305/11306

[Michael Tope]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tom Rauch" <w8ji at contesting.com>
> 
> This proposal is moronic. There is no other way to describe
> it.
> 

Not entirely. The Think Tank guys make a good point in that
the most optimum spectrum allocation scheme is a dynamic
one. You sort of see that during contests when spectrum that
normally isn't used for a particular mode fills up (40 meter
phone down to 7015 KHz during CQ WW SSB and 10 
meter CW up to 28150 during a high sunspot CQ WW CW). 

> They want all mode and bandwidth rules removed. I can't
> imagine anyone, with the exception of people who enjoy
> causing problems, supporting that plan.  

That is the problem. The 1% of the population who didn't 
get enough attention from mommy and daddy or whose
DNA got too many cosmic ray hits during gestation might 
decide its "cute" to run a phone net everyday on 3503 
KHz. The only way to make it work would be to put some
teeth into the voluntary bandplans. The national societies 
would set the bandplans, but FCC could step in a rule in
the event that one of the aforementioned miscreants was 
thumbing his or her nose at everyone by doing something
troublesome just for the sake of being a jerk.This is done 
now with frequency coordination on VHF. The FCC 
defers to the local frequency coordinators to assign repeater
pairs, but they can step in if necessary. Pushing the 
coordination down to the national societies would allow 
for a more dynamic system that could respond to changes 
in technology more quickly than a scheme that relied on 
the FCC rulemaking process. That is the disadvantage of 
the ARRL plan. It tries to look into the future to guess 
how thing are going to look down the road. If it gets it 
wrong, then we have to go through another cycle of FCC 
rulemaking to fix it (which may not be as bad as it sounds 
if things don't change too quickly). 

> Essentially it
> would turn the amateur bands into a place where the
> individual operator's judgment determines what mode and
> bandwidth he puts in what part of the band.

Actually it sort of works. For the most part, people respect
the DX window on 75 meters despite the fact that it is totally 
voluntary and this is on the band/mode segment that is 
considered by most people to be the worst of the worst in
terms of attracting mal-adjusted hams.  It works reasonably
well on 160 (contests non-withstanding). 
 
> I can't believe anyone who understands radio communications
> and the nature of people would every support such a concept.
> Maybe it is a tongue-in-cheek mirror of the ARRL plan. They
> want a new way of keeping order, so someone else decided to
> ask for a new way to create chaos.
> 
> 73 Tom

One of my old college buddies W8LX appears to be in the 
"Think Tank". He's always had a bit of a devilish streak in him, 
so I suppose its possible that the whole thing is a big joke :):)

73 de Mike, W4EF.................................