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Final Band Plan Accepted today by the ARRL

Discussion in 'Amateur Radio News' started by WW5F, Jul 24, 2020.

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  1. N6IQ

    N6IQ Ham Member QRZ Page

    No changes are needed. ARRL is creating work for themselves but not representing the majority of licensed amateurs.
     
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  2. K0IDT

    K0IDT Ham Member QRZ Page

    This is the bandplan from last year's' negotiations' with Winlink-arrl, don't why there's even a distinction between the two anymore. This was the starting point, more spectrum was negotiated but the deal fell apart when Winlink-aarl failed to meet their obligations and bargain in good faith. The short version is Winlink-arrl wanted the status quo on their methods of operation and all the additional spectrum they could get. The band plan and the entire presentation
    are a matter of public record, sans the WInlink position and the final negotiated bandplan. All I am allowed to say about the Winlink position going in is I would be very embarrassed to have it known publicly,and in my opinion
    my health insurance wouldn't cover the severe beating that would follow public disclosure (legal cover, operative word is opinion).

    After dealing with all the dishonesty surrounding the events of last year I'm not even sure I could support the below bandplan that I had a small part in developing.

    Read the footnote, this bandplan offered some protection for CW and other narrow bandwidth human-to-human modes. Also removed the 'bots from the very narrow WARC bands. As I said previously, if 5kHz on 17 & 12m is enough
    then it should be enough on 30 & 40M.


    upload_2020-7-28_15-57-31.png
     
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  3. K0UO

    K0UO Platinum Subscriber Platinum Subscriber QRZ Page

    Ron, thanks for your input on this. I know you have made petitions on this in the past and you resent a better understanding (for amateur radio operators in general) than the League as a whole, on this subject.
     
    K8PG likes this.
  4. AC0GT

    AC0GT Ham Member QRZ Page

    That's an excellent question. It's a question I'd like answered by those that express the opinion that nothing needs to be changed. To express that incentive licensing is working there must be some metric by which it is measured. There's a goal that incentive licensing is supposed to be reaching, is there not? What is that goal? How can we know if current trends are reaching that goal?

    Here's the license trends from the Hamdata Home Page.

    It looks to me like the "middle is falling out" of Amateur radio. Given that there's been no new Advanced licenses issued for 20 years I suspect that the rate of decrease in those numbers will only increase. If incentive licensing is working then I'd think we'd be seeing a few less in net gain at Technician, and General have a gain somewhere in between that of the gain in Technician and Extra.

    That's fine that people are looking to learn CW. What seems to be the problem that ARRL is addressing is that the introduction that anyone with a Technician license sees on HF is mostly CW only. What kind of message does that "telegraph" to newcomers? It might leave the impression that HF is for CW and the bandwidth above 30 MHz is full of all kinds of interesting modes.

    Again, that's great if newcomers are finding interest in CW but there's more to HF than CW. I'm not so sure the ARRL leadership are on the right path with this proposal but it's better than seeing people leave, or not bother to even try HF, and do nothing about it.

    Why would the FCC agree to set aside CW only bandwidth? And how does doing so resolve the problems of supposed poorly behaved operators? You can wish for this all you like but it's not going to happen unless you can make a good argument to the FCC and there's enough support from the community.

    I have my own ideas on what the licensing and band plan should look like, and I'll test how well it would be received by looking at QRZ and other similar forums. I'm not seeing many people interested in anything but going back to licensing that the FCC rejected 20, 30, or 60 years ago. That's fine, I can wait for a more receptive audience. If people are pining for the licensing that they remember from the 1960s then I won't have to wait long before they won't be able to oppose a new licensing structure.

    Again I'll point out that I believe the ARRL proposal to be misguided and too little too late. Even so it's moving ever so slightly in the right direction. If implemented then I expect it to do little to rectify the problems of people not seeing an incentive to upgrade. If I'm correct then there will be much more evidence to make the case for a "do over" on licensing. The Technician license may have been a good idea when it was cooked up in the 1950s but it's not a great idea today. It is long overdue to create a new entry level license.
     
  5. K0UO

    K0UO Platinum Subscriber Platinum Subscriber QRZ Page

    I don't disagree with your statement, but there's really two separate issues here.

    One is giving away Spectrum to automated wideband digital systems and the other is Technician HF privileges.

    They should be addressed separately not together this is simply a political move by the ARRL. To get the Technician support by trading off precious Spectrum even in the narrow WARC bands.

    Surely the Tec's and others deserve a voice and not to be forced to accept this single proposal.
     
    ND6M likes this.
  6. ND6M

    ND6M Ham Member QRZ Page

    You sure like to ramble on , and ignore your own "data".
    BTW using the Advanced class to make some point about losing numbers is pretty disingenuous, seeing as how there are no new Advanced licenses being issued.

    Of course incentive licensing is working, your own data states that Amateur Extra class is increasing in numbers
    . People ARE upgrading because they WANT to upgrade.
     
  7. K0IDT

    K0IDT Ham Member QRZ Page

    You're welcome Steve. I would encourage anyone that's made it this far in the thread to check out the link I posted up thread. Skip the body of the text if wish but at least read the presentation in the appendix.

    Edit: The sample Winlink emails below the presentation make good reading too :)
     
    Last edited: Jul 29, 2020
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  8. WS9K

    WS9K Ham Member QRZ Page

  9. AC0GT

    AC0GT Ham Member QRZ Page

    Is it two separate issues? If so then it's still two issues that are closely related.

    It looks like a singular issue, a band plan that has carried over privileges from nearly 70 years ago and are no longer relevant today. Perhaps the issue could be worded another way, the incentive licensing as envisioned years ago is not providing sufficient incentives to upgrade and this plan is how the ARRL intends to rectify it.

    If it can be described as two issues then there is still a need to clarify how one proposal affects the other. If separated then there would have to be mention of the other on how to deal with what happens if both are not adopted. Should there be a comment period on this petition then people can give feedback on if they need to be separated and how to address separating the two. The FCC is then free to adopt this in its entirety, in part, or not at all.

    As far as I can tell there is no support for this from Technician license holders, or at least very little. Any Technician desiring HF access has upgraded already. The proposal is to create a desire to upgrade. This will come with both more room for phone modes, and allowing for more digital modes on already allocated sub-bands. This room for more digital modes should come with knowing how ACDS will be treated if there is more freedom given to Technician on HF.

    Those with a Technician license now apparently don't much care what happens on HF, and that's the problem being addressed here. Those that want to use Amateur HF bandwidth already upgraded beyond Technician. This petition is an invitation for those that have not upgraded, and those not yet licensed, to join them on HF.

    No Technician license holder is forced to do anything. If the FCC opens this to comment then they are free to express support or displeasure on any part of the petition. But, again, I expect to hear little from those with a Technician license because if they wanted HF privileges they they would have upgraded already. The people that would be most affected by this are largely going to be those that have not yet obtained an Amateur radio license.

    It's because this is an attempt to create an incentive in a group of people that have implicitly expressed a disinterest in upgrading that I believe this proposal to fail to achieve the desired goals. The focus needs to be on those not yet licensed. That frees the ARRL to consider doing more than arranging deck chairs on a sinking ship. The ARRL should see the Technician license class, and incentive licensing generally, as a failed experiment. Then go about creating a license structure that is logical, simple, and not yet another patch on a poorly thought out license from the 1950s.
     
  10. K0IDT

    K0IDT Ham Member QRZ Page

    Exactly, but the FCC has a large number of amateur radio related petitions piled up, being otherwise occupied with 5G for the moment. Look for them to roll all the petitions into one omnibus ruling, as they have done in the past, rather than deal with each one on an individual basis. I've already stated publicly that I'll abide by whatever they decide on RM-11831, others involved in the pile of petitions may not like the outcome and go for v 2.0. Actually at this time we're probably up to v 7 or 8 on some of the silliness.
     
  11. NK8I

    NK8I Ham Member QRZ Page

    I seems ridiculous to assume what new hams see or want. Young hams don't know what's like to not have the internet, they have the WWW to tell them all about what privileges come with each ticket.

    There's a new generation that wants to build stuff, portable qrp tranceiver kits (cw operated) seems to be whats driving interest in HF.

    What the hobby doesn't need to project is that HF is a place for digital messaging when that offers very little to people who've had a smart phone since they were little.
     
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  12. N1FM

    N1FM Ham Member QRZ Page

    ARRL: You've got questions?

    Who needs scientific data?

    We've got hunche$, gue$$e$, and hundred$ of thousand$ tied up in lobbying and legal fee$!



    It won't be long now. Wait for it....

    [​IMG]
     
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  13. AC0GT

    AC0GT Ham Member QRZ Page

    Is it? Seems rather clear from the trends that many licensed Amateurs see no need to get access to HF because, as has been pointed out numerous time, if they want access to HF then all they need to do is pass a simple exam.

    Is that not assuming what newly licensed Amateurs see in upgrading?

    By this logic there's no convincing these people of any need for an Amateur radio license. If a smart phone gives them 24/7 access to worldwide communications then there is no need for any Amateur radio license. But it appears that many hundreds of thousands of people have got a license, and kept it, since the introduction of the smart phone.

    This ARRL petition is not necessarily assuming what newly licensed Amateurs expect from Amateur radio. What it is doing is matching the content of the exams to the privileges granted. Did not the Element 2 exam cover voice and digital communications? Did this exam not also cover operation on 80, 40, and 15 meters? Then why are we not allowing voice and digital communications for Technician license holders on 80, 40, and 15 meters? To create an "incentive"? How well is that working?

    The Technician license is a mess. It's got nonsensical restrictions on privileges, all from 70 years of patchwork of changes based on the idea that Morse code is still the primary mode of communications for Amateur radio.

    It's time to start over. Grandfather the Technician and General licenses and create new licenses in their place. Have the privileges based on allowed equipment, like any other licensing, instead of trying to craft an "incentive" with bits and pieces of bandwidth being held back arbitrarily.
     
  14. W5MOY

    W5MOY Ham Member QRZ Page

    Well from a new Generals (one week today) perspective I think it is a bad idea giving additional privileges to techs. I got my general license because I wanted on the HF bands, I am now starting to study for my Extra because I'm seeing portions of the bands that I want to work and can't right now.

    The incentive to upgrade is there with out giving techs too much of a taste of the HF bands. Had I been given permission sooner I would have been a bigger bumbling idiot than i am now. The VHF and UHF bands are a great place to start getting your feet wet in the hobby and i don't see any reason why that would need to be changed. Its the area for beginners like I was with no one around to learn from need to be because it limits their contact to people who are mostly in close proximity, and gives the chance to find someone to learn from. Sure I've learned a decent amount from youtube and books, but those conversations and meetings with people close to me and with by far more knowledge than I have has taught me much more.
     
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  15. K7JEM

    K7JEM Ham Member QRZ Page

    Yet beginning hams have almost always started on HF, and been allowed to make mistakes. And it's that way pretty much world wide.
     

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