What? ARRL Petitions FCC to Expand the Shortwave Privileges of Technician-Class Hams

I have my opinion on ARRL asking FCC to grant more HF privileges to Technician-class licensees.

I verbalize them in this video:



After you hear my comments, please leave your comments.

Thanks, 73 de NW7US dit dit

 

Hello, thanks for the video - I just recently received my Technician's ticket last Saturday - I'm admittedly and formally a "FREE BANDER" on 11 meter (CB RADIO) and 10 meter when as I was driving trucks OTR - (better side of 10 years ago)

Honestly I heard MORE "FREE BANDERS" than I did Amateur Radio Operators on 10 Meter...

I don't clearly understand why the 10 Meter band is such a issue **IF** 10 Meters are to be utilized by Amateur Radio Operators, and instead are mostly being utilized by "FREE BANDERS"...

So, with this being the case in my findings, WHY NOT just let the Technician Class have 10 meter all together???

 

Perhaps because all those "freebanders" are operating in the CW/ beacon part of the band.

I have heard very few in the phone band.

 

That could be quite possible - back when I was a "Free Bander", we just picked a channel, and went; We where oblivious to any sort of band plan, Now I find myself checking a chart to make sure I'm legit...

However, this really doesn't answer my question about just totally allowing Tech's full access to 10 meter...

I mean, really come on now, lets be honest, most truckers on American Highways can access 10 meters anyways, and maybe only a small fraction my have a Amateur Radio license, so why not allow Tech's full access, and then allow all 10 meter users to talk to and maybe recruit the "Free Banders'", and allow it to be done legally through FCC???

This can serve two purposes, first you can more accurately estimate the actual usage, and second; EDUCATION, licensed Amateurs can educated the Free Banders' about getting licensed, as well as what a band plan is, and what channels are best for dx'n and contesting...

I just think in my opinion to open up 10 meter would be beneficial in the long run...

 

... or we could just do away with any licensing all together.

BTW: it is against part 97 rules for an Amateur to communicate with any radio station not operated by an Amateur,
We can't legally talk to illegal freebaders on 10 meters.

 

Well, I can see that we're failing to agree or understand each other... So, to be clear, I'm not advocating exactly foregoing licensing, I am suggesting that 10 meter should be open fully to Technician class without restrictions;

furthermore, I am also suggesting that some sort of initiative be taken to **maybe** entice, educate, and convert more Free Banders' to become productive Amateur Radio users; they already have the equipment to get started on 10 meter...

ANYONE ever consider holding a HAM-CRAM at a truck stop or travel center over a weekend when most truckers are on there down time, and have nothing better to do???

Chances are NOPE!!!

I have never seen one or never heard of one HAM-CRAM being held at a Truck Stop OR Travel Center, but yet I've seen several Amateur Radio organizations setup comm's in rest areas along the interstate serving coffee and doughnuts ASKING FOR DONATIONS....

Can you see the irony???

However, it would seam as though by your response you hold some sort of pent up hostility towards such an idea, maybe I'm mistaken...

Amateur Radio is to be an education, and an experiment, is what I was told; I'd like to challenge some groups to this experiment to educate and convert Free Banders', with that I bid you 73's and fair weather...

 

There have been such sessions aimed at truckers, though I don't think I've seen one at a truck stop. There was a radio club that had it's meetings at a truck stop, and many of the attendees were trucker hams who just happened to be there at the time. Sadly, that club disbanded.

There may be some issues with converting Freebanders. Some people fear an influx of 'lawless' CBers, but today that's not much of a concern. What used to make CB lawless is now legal. Freebaanding, however, is completely illegal, and considered a much more serious transgression. In other words, many hams see Freebanders as being on about the same level as the local drug dealer. Most hams are nerds, and the idea of breaking the law makes them nauseous.

Obviously, some Freebanders have converted to amateur radio, and become decent upstanding members of the community. Sadly, many have converted to amateur radio, and become even more lawless than they were on those 'extree channels'. They are often accused of being the source of various problems on the air. The reputation is not good. Sadly, the good guys get tarred with the same brush as the bad guys.

I'll teach my three day Tech class anytime you get 3 or more people together.

 

That is an interesting idea.

Part of the issue, of course, is how to attract Free Banders to licensed 10M operation. Many already own Export CB radios and illegally designed amplifiers, much of which cause spurious emissions and IMD. They should not be using such equipment on 10M. And from the sounds of it, why take a Ham exam to receive less bandwidth than what is already being pirated between 26 to 28 MHz? It just seems like a unlikely buy-in for Free Banders.

And then we would find the 10M World-wide HF band contaminated by newly licensed operators, many of which inexperienced with Ham Radio protocols. Yet today they are given a small portion of 10M for voice operations. I worked very hard to earn my licenses (10 exams w/CW) and would prefer not to be operating with newbies over an entire band. I think I have earned that right, which is the entire purpose of having a different license classes. All of this is a tough buy-in for the Ham Radio community.

Unfortunately, I do not see a solution to this dilemma other than for the most experienced Free Banders to join the Ham Radio licensed rank and experience access to multiple HF bands. That continues to be the defacto solution for 60 years now.

 

It may not be apparent during this solar cycle, but during cycles with higher solar activity 10m is often jumping with activity from stations around the world. Reasons for not giving US Technicians full use of the band include:

-10m is not a 'US Only" or "US Owned" band
-In keeping with the FCC policy of incentive licensing with progressively greater privileges.
-Not inflicting hams world wide with the activities of beginner US hams with limited knowledge and experience

 

All they have to do is upgrade. Problem solved.

 

Let's take another look at that ARRL poll...

What is your present license class?

Novice........21...0.3%
Technician...815..10.3
General.....1777..22.5
Advanced.....383...4.9
Extra.......4848..61.4
blank.........37...0.5 ​

So out of the whole group of respondents (we'll call these "the people who care about the ARRL proposal enough to respond to the poll"), fully 88.8% of them held a General or higher class of license. More than half (61.4%) of the respondents are Extra class. They have full privileges everywhere.

Think about that -- of the people who care, the vast majority of them already have the privileges that the ARRL proposal seeks to add to Technician licensees.

From ARRL's own "data," there is no way that anyone can argue that there is a barrier to HF privileges for anybody who wants them. In fact, among the people who answered the League's call for information and comments, most of them, by a huge margin, have no need for the goods ARRL is trying to peddle.

I don't know who this proposal is intended to help, but it isn't the people the proposal claims. The number of Technician licensees active enough to answer the League's poll is statistically tiny -- just a few percentage points above the noise floor, in fact.

 

He repeatedly uses buzz phrases like "open fully".... and never describes any details.

Perhaps, he thinks all that "dead" spectrum below 28.300 is fair game for phone operations.

Anthony, take this for whats it worth, you have only been licensed for about a month, study a little more and upgrade, it's not at all difficult.

 

Do you know if those numbers are the first poll or the second one?

The ARRL has NEVER stated why they conducted a second poll (the one that had less than 7000 responses.) I believe there "may" be some (not so well) hidden agenda.​

 

I detect a hidden agenda in your post about hidden agendas. Cher che la conspiracy!

 

It was the first one, which was open to the public, and had far more responses. The link to the ARRL report is at the top of my post, and they discuss their re-polling and the respondent counts therein.

Well, they did make this comment in their report:

Note that this was not a scientific survey, in that those responding were self selected and not controlled by geography, age or license class. This can tend to skew the results towards less central responses, meaning that the more strongly someone feels positive or negative about the topic, the more likely they are to respond. ​

In other words, the people who care the most tended to be the ones who commented, and that's not what they wanted, as they explained in the next paragraph.

As a result, we decided to do a second survey (using the same questions) of 1000 members to be able to compare results with the original one. Those sent the second survey were randomly chosen from all USA members we had email address for. This second survey resulted in an additional 375 responses (37%), which we summarized separately.​

Emphasis added.

So they polled the paying members to see if they could get a better result*. That survey resulted in the following numbers:

What is your present license class?

Novice........0....0.0%
Technician...27....7.2
General......77...20.9
Advanced.....27....7.2
Extra.......240...64.2
Blank.........3....0.8 ​

As you can see, the polling of the paid members yielded even worse numbers for ARRL's proposal, with fully 92.3% of the responding members holding a General class or higher license. So when the League decided to improve the scientificness (my words) of their poll, the result they got was even more inconsistent with the assertions they later sent to FCC.

The League included an article in their report, titled "Where are the Novices?" The results of their polls seem to quite clearly answer that question -- they upgraded.

(*) ...despite the fact that the League pretends to represent the entire service in their activities and legislative and regulatory advocacy efforts.