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Subj: arl letter Vol. 24, No. 45 1/6
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To : ARL@ARL
***************
The ARRL Letter
Vol. 24, No. 45
November 18, 2005
***************
IN THIS EDITION:
* +League asks FCC to regulate by bandwidth instead of mode
* +String of tornadoes prompts Amateur Radio response
* +ISS commander entertains, educates, inspires via ham radio
* +ARRL announces director, vice direction election results
* +Toys pouring in for 2005 Holiday Toy Drive
* Solar Update
* IN BRIEF:
This weekend on the radio: Get on for the ARRL NOVEMBER SWEEPSTAKES
(SSB)!
ARRL Certification and Continuing Education course registration
+"Ham Aid" funds available to help replace storm-damaged emcomm systems
+Revised restrictions on 70 cm bear repeating
UK radio amateurs don't want lifetime licenses, poll indicates
Deadline is December 31 for WRTC 2006 applicants
TAPR announces election results
+Available on ARRL Audio News <http://www.arrl.org/arrlletter/audio/
===========================================================
==Delivery problems (ARRL member direct delivery only!):
letter-dlvy@arrl.org
==Editorial questions or comments: Rick Lindquist, N1RL, n1rl@arrl.org
===========================================================
+ NOTE: ARRL Headquarters will be closed Thursday and Friday, November 24
and 25, for the Thanksgiving holiday. There will be no W1AW bulletin or code
practice transmissions on those days. Next week's editions of The ARRL
Letter, ARRL Audio News and the DX and propagation bulletins will be
distributed Wednesday, November 23. ARRL Headquarters will reopen Monday,
November 28, at 8 AM Eastern Time. We wish everyone a safe and enjoyable
Thanksgiving holiday!
===========================================================
==ARRL FILES REGULATION-BY-BANDWIDTH PETITION WITH FCC
The ARRL has formally asked the FCC to adopt the League's plan to segment
the Amateur Radio bands solely by emission bandwidth rather than by mode.
The Petition for Rule Making, filed November 14, recommends what the ARRL
called "a shift in regulatory philosophy" that would encourage and
facilitate the development and refinement of digital techniques and advanced
technologies. At the same time, the League said, accommodating new
technologies would not come at the expense of current operating modes,
including double-sideband AM phone.
"This petition seeks for the Amateur Radio Service the flexibility to
experiment with new digital transmission methods and types to be developed
in the future," the League's petition said, "while permitting present
operating modes to continue to be used for as long as there are radio
amateurs who wish to use them." The ARRL said the changes it suggests will
also update the FCC's rules and eliminate the need for "cumbersome
procedures" to determine whether a new digital mode is legal under Part 97.
The ARRL's regulation-by-bandwidth plan is far from a done deal. In order
for it to be adopted, the FCC first must put the League's Petition for Rule
Making on public notice and invite formal public comments. A subsequent
Notice of Proposed Rule Making would kick off a further round of formal
comments. Ultimately, the FCC would have to issue a Report and Order putting
the changes into place and setting an effective date.
The League conceded that its regulation-by-bandwidth regime would place
increased responsibility on the amateur community to establish workable,
accepted band plans, but it expressed confidence that such an effort would
be successful.
The petition filed this week has been in the works for some time now. The
ARRL Board of Directors adopted the petition's guiding principle in 2002 and
invited comments from the Amateur Radio community in the summer of 2004. The
proposal reflects expert input from the ARRL Ad Hoc HF Digital Committee as
well as from ARRL staff. Comments from League members and an ARRL Executive
Committee review led to further fine tuning.
The ARRL wants the FCC to replace the table at §97.305(c) with a new one
that segment bands by bandwidths ranging from 200 Hz to 100 kHz. Unaffected
by the ARRL's recommendations, if they're adopted, would be 160 and 60
meters. Subbands in other bands below 29 MHz would accommodate maximum
emission bandwidths of 200, 500 or 3.5 kHz, with an exception of 9 kHz for
AM phone.
The League's petition "seeks to facilitate and encourage the development,
refinement and use of new digital technologies without the regulatory
remnants developed at a time when the principal emissions used in the
Amateur Radio Service were Morse telegraphy and single- or double-sideband
amplitude-modulated telephony." Part 97 rules need to permit higher data
rates between 1.8 and 450 MHz to encourage development of digital multimedia
technology, "which has great promise for improving and fostering more
effective emergency and disaster relief communications," the petition
asserted.
"This petition does not favor one mode at the expense of another," the ARRL
concluded in urging FCC adoption. "It merely allows expansion of the
repertoire of options that amateurs may pursue compatibly."
ARRL CEO David Sumner, K1ZZ, discussed the subject of regulating by
bandwidth in three "It Seems to Us . . ." QST editorials: "Regulation by
Bandwidth" in September 2004, "Narrowing the Bandwidth Issues" in April 2005
and "Self Regulation" in October 2005.
The text of the ARRL's Petition for Rule Making is on the ARRL Web site
<http://www.arrl.org/announce/regulatory/bandwidth/Bandwidth-Minute-64-Petit
ion-FINAL.pdf.
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