FCC Denies RM-11392

Again you lie Larry. This petition was not denying you to use an SCS modem. All it was doing was bringing back the narrow band nature of the CW/Data band. Larry you must not know how to actually read because in the petition it never mentioned anything about banning SCS modems. Just making them play nice with everyone else.

 

I think you got the wrong petition.

 

How about checking your commercial email daily over winlink? That would be regular use.

 

I don't receive commercial email on Winlink. It wouldn't make sense to and I believe it may violate the rules. Besides, commercial is irrelevant to the question though not irrelevant to the topic.

Checking your Winlink emails daily for a period of two weeks. That would be irregular over the period of a year.

Define regular use?

 

How about this working definition:

If you have to use WL2K to check your email within a specified interval for fear of missing something then it is considered to be regular use. If that interval is every minute, every hour, every day, or every week, etc. it is still regular use.

If you have to use the WL2K to send emails within a specified interval either as a notification or as a reply to a received email then it is considered to be regular use. If that interval is every minute, every hour, every day, or every week, etc. it is still regular use.

tim ab0wr

 

Tim, why don't you just say your REAL meaning: If anyone EVER uses Winlink or any other advanced mode, they are in violation of the "Tim Rules". (Of course, the FCC sees things quite differently from Tim.)

Happily, the vast majority of the amateur community have rejected all of the distortions being spread by those who want to stop ANY mode that is not "THEIR" mode. The FCC stood with the amateur community, and against the small -- but highly vocal -- group that sought to eliminate any and all advanced digital modes.

 

The NON-PROBLEM is that those in harbor or at rest are NOT TRANSMITTING. By my quick analysis, that appeared to be at least 30% of those shown on the map. That is quite clearly evident when you look at the time-stamped last heard for each station.

Winlink does not supply "wireless access" in any form. Every user not registered as a CURRENT disaster resource in a CURRENT designated disaster zone is limited to 30 minutes of air time in any 24 hour period.

Nobody is required to have Sailmail. Most small boat owners do not have a few extra thousand to pay for a Marine HF transceiver that would SELDOM, if ever be used.

What in the world is wrong with a person who has a sailing hobby also having a radio hobby ? NOTHING ! SO WHAT if that person uses his/her LICENSE (which he/she had to work to obtain), and their HF radio (which he/she had to work to buy) for a safety of life and "message to grandma" purpose. That is NO DIFFERENT from sending a radio gram -- except that it occupies the airwaves for a much shorter period.

 

What is wrong is the interference that even the 30 minutes per day users cause. You must not operate/listen to many of the other digital modes on the hf bands or you would have experienced this interference first hand. Operating without busy signal detection is a dead give away as to the attitudes of the users. They obviously feel their use of the amateur bands should receive priority.

There would be little if any objection to winlink if the users followed good operating practice by not interfering with ongoing qso's. However, my opinion is that this would also destroy the current utility of winlink and a lot of users would drop using it if they could not obtain priority access to amateur spectrum.

If and when the sunspot cycle picks up the winlink admins need to look at their 30 meter operation closely. The fcc's auto subband and region 1's bandplan are going to clash and badly. There is no doubt in my mind that there will be a huge amounts of complaints from region 1 digimode operators added to the US hams complaints. Then the fcc will have something to deal with.

In reference to the petition, this petition did not seek to ban pactor 3, only limit its use to the lower speeds. Over the last several months I have been testing and monitoring a lot while testing fldigi. While doing this I have seen a lot of winlink connections. What's funny is that the vast majority, perhaps 3 out of 20, ever exceed 1.2 kHz in width, and of the three, two of those only get to 1.5 kHz widths.

I believe this is what the fcc said in their rejection of the petition when they indicated there wasn't sufficient substantiation at this time to justify action. This doesn't mean they wouldn't consider another petition in the future with sufficient justification.

Jim
WA0LYK

 

Your post highlights *YOUR* view of WL2K far better than it does mine. Your view of amateur radio as a common carrier is well known.

The mere fact that you have to PUT WORDS IN MY MOUTH to argue with, i.e. create YOUR OWN Strawman to beat to death, shows that you have nothing to offer about what I *actually* stated.

As most of us on here already know, your best posts come when you are beating your own Strawmen death. This one is no different.

tim ab0wr

 

Larry I have tried winlink in the past and found it to be slow and very painful to use. Plus the fact that Steve Waterman reads emails and posts them for all to see is another reason why winlink should be banned. I don't mind a sysop reading emails but when they post them to open forums then I have problems. Besides he was telling everyone that winlink was a secure email system. Hmmmm wonder how many other lies he has told.

Point is if you use winlink daily to check email then you are using it regularly to bypass commercially available services.

 

Larry, Are you dumb or what? The bottom line on the page says clearly those are all the positions within the last seven days which means they have transmitted at least within the last 7 days. It is funny how you try to spin things and get caught acting ignorant.

If they can afford the couple thousand for a SCS modem and an amateur radio setup for winlink then I am sure they can afford a marine radio. Larry your arguments are ridiculous and every time you post you show just how dumb you really are.

 

When one resorts to name calling, he/she reveals an inability to respond with an intelligent rebuttal.

My point was quite well made. The 400-odd users shown WORLDWIDE are not transmitting continuously. The average appears to be a one or two minute transmission every few days -- or 25% to 35% of those users active with short transmissions on any one day.

The modem is less than a thousand dollars, and a suitable HF rig can be found for $300 to $500. Most hams have a mobile rig that becomes their Winlink radio when needed. Most users operate Winlink only quite sporadically, for testing, or for short periods of time while traveling mobile.

A marine HF radio will set you back at least $3000 USD, plus the tuner. It cannot be conveniently tuned (transmit and receive frequencies must be separately programmed), and is a really poor "all around" radio. That is a LOT of money for most hams -- especially for something that would very, very seldom be used -- and for something that would be absolutely useless in an emergency management or a disaster response situation.

 

Winlink is as easy as sending an e-mail. If you maladjust your equipment (probably by overmodulating), any modem will be slow.

Steve has NEVER told anyone that Winlink is a secure e-mail. Quite the opposite ! It is not readily readable by the CASUAL LISTENER, but it is in no way Secure. Anyone with technical expertise -- or simply the right equipment -- can listen in. (Perhaps you should read one of my published articles: "An Illusion of Secrecy", which goes into some small depth about "Scrambling", "Privacy", and "Encryption".)

If someone sends something that they are ashamed of, it should not have been sent -- on the air or otherwise -- in the first place.

Unfortunately for you, I was reading along on the e-mails in question. You alleged that something had been sent by Winlink when it had not, to support an alleged weakness in the controls on the system, and Steve posted the item in question to refute your false claim.

 

It is tough to wade through the biased minutia...but it appears the answer was;

If you check/send your email every minute, every hour, every day, or every week, etc. it is regular use.

It has interval, but no limits. Could that mean every minute for 2 minutes or every day for 2 weeks is not allowed? Could that also mean If I didn't have a specified interval, I could then use it. I am honestly curious about the various interpretations. I think the vagueness of the rules allows us some latitude to experiment and play.

It seems most of ham radio would be in violation of 97.113a5. My APRS Beacon when traveling (I could use my company provided Moto-Q phone with unlimited Internet access), the nightly HHH net I was obviously banned from (I could have the net on the Internet), Slowscan, ATV, the W1AW and K1MAN Simul-broadcasts all could move to the Internet.
With the regular users gone, there would only be a couple hams in Botswana left on the bands. Then why not give it to BPL.

So my question remains

What is regular use?

 

I too, like Larry, am dumb or what ( heck, I have even used the word "spoilt" in a sentence before I found out it wasn't a word, before I found out it was a word). But I wonder why a person is investing a couple thousand for a SCS modem when you can pick up a kam plus for a couple hundred bucks.

I have met a few sailors on their sailboats that are by no means rich, but have invested in a dream of sailing. Some cross the ocean in a 35 foot boat on a small budget. They might work in local shops to keep them going. Just because they have a boat, doesn't mean they are all rich. It reminds me of the class envy thing going on.

Ok, having watched you post over the years, I will expect the personal attack (I am dumb, ignorant, ridiculous, lier, CB'er, troll, can't read, 5 beers short, whacker, idiot, clueless, and my all time favorite... Wow a first class command of the English language is something you definitely do not have. Can't even spell spoiled correctly). Maybe we should compare our winlink usage to see which of us is the bigger winlid.

Have fun...