ARRL report - No Consensus Reached for FCC on “Symbol Rate” Issues

you are VERY welcome.

1. For me personally, improving the CREST RATIO (peak to average) would mean that my MFJ 993B intellituner wouldn't get so CONFUSED on some bands and go nuts. At least i think so. It does FINE on FSK type speed levels, but the higher crest factors of some of the PSK modes cause it to get confused. At least i think so. I'm still learning. This is a problem when you are running a 5-band 24/7/365 operation for both HAM and SHARES Other than thaat --- I really don't care. I read something that the VOICE GUYS would benefit more than me. I don't qute understand that yet

2. VOICE: I presume that eventually, something will subsume SSB just like it did largely away with AM. I'm giving a go at FREE DV but it doesnt look like a world-beater just yet. Would higher symbol rate solve that? i don't know enough to even guess, but someone said they might be the big beneficiaries. I don't know. Anyone? I need something to help my friends in APARTMENTS who wnat to do voice. I wnat them on 80 meter voice. Somehow.

3. ARRL / Techs // Etc. The dumbing down of ham radio has got to stop. It ceretainly has in MY COUnTY--- we are having a BLAST and we are all learning like mad. And that makes clubs GROW GROW GROW. There is SO much to learn and try, I can't ever seem to run out. There s a duplexer with hard line cut apart sitting on my bedroom desk -- the only available surface LEFT. There are tube rigs sitting upstairs on two desks and piled to the ceiling waiting on me.....power supplies....a linear we are going to refurbish and add more bands to for the EOC sits upstairs..... FreeDV becons. Can't even GET to VARA FM....too busy.....the end-fed baluns were a SMASH success and now I want the crew to build SWR meters next..... Gotta find out if any of them took the EXTRA exam on Saaturday -- we were driving back from vacation.

First draft of my new book to teach the BASICS of communications to southern baptist disaster volunteers is just about 1st Draft version now --- almost 60 pages. Just skims along the surface, but gives people a starting point. Most hams today only know how to push a mic button.....so so sad. Read through the FCC comments --- and so so few had any techical grasp. Quote after Quote of people embarrasing themselves.....with their lack of technical grasp.

Gotta get hams better educated. Arguments like this could have been stopped years ago.

 

yeah, and i found that curious? Why is the FCC so dead set against hard bandwidth limits???? What do you think is driving them??? Are other nations' hams making some sort of advances, or is there somthing the FCC thinks we are really really behind on????

 

As well, IIRC a bandwidth limit is still in place without the 300 baud limit if you take all the Part 97 rules for HF into account in one sitting. Basically limitations in one section impose a bandwidth limit in another, but, as most of us realize, booting up those several tables in Part 97 that deal with this is a chore. Is this what the FCC was thinking when they rejected the ARRL petition before? I don't know. I guess they might not want to have redundancy or too much limits or what not.

 

Of course not. but hopefully they still have an engineer or two that can comprehend the truth.

 

So ignorance must be bliss.. or Head buried in Sand.
lol

 

For MY money, the ARRL would be better served by having FAR more detailed minutes, and coming out within 48 hours of meetings.....sheesh, they shouldl be able to do a LOT better than our little local groups where we struggle just to keep the web site going......

i am hearing unsubstantiated suggestions of possible assertions to the board beofre they voted on the data stuff......that might not have been totally accurate. I have ZERO way to substantiate any of that, since the minutes are so opaque. If no one knows the actual points made and such, how are we to know what their decision making process was? on another point, they seemed to be unaware of the implications for JS8..... this doesn't look good, and may explain some of the actions taken later. I recognize the frustration of people who rightfully ask why in years and years they didn't already have a frequency plan???? These are just humans, but gee whiz it doesn't always look pretty....... The way to gain support in my mind is to be ON TOP of the technical issues and exerting obviously wise leadership.

 

Trinidad and Tobago have SUCH a simpler frequency table. It shows the BOTTOM and the TOP of each band. Done. (as far as i could tell)

 

In their response they state:

"We also observe that while a 2.8 kilohertz bandwidth limitation would accommodate HF data emissions that are in common use today, such a limitation could, at the same time, undermine the goal—fundamental to the amateur service —of encouraging advances in technology if amateur radio operators were thereby prevented from stepping beyond today’s radio science. Imposing a maximum bandwidth would result in a loss of flexibility to develop and improve technologies as licensees’ operating interests change and new technologies are developed. We seek comment on these tentative conclusions."

Basically what I get out of that is the FCC is forward thinking and they don't want to have to revisit this issue as technology marches on. For example if spread spectrum were to become more mainstream is may be possible for a very wide signal to coexist peacefully in the band among other emissions?

It's also possible that overall future band activity might subside, and thus a wider signal could be accommodated with less impact than it would today?

I would say since right now there is no hard bandwidth limit for HF, the comission has a point. I mean in 1980 we thought a baud rate limit made sense....

 

Thank you. That makes sense. Everyone seems to ignore that when you widen your signal, you REDUCE your absolute power density per Hz. So there is a tradeoff. It isn't quite as bad as a chicken little view might take it. So I have mixed feelings and haven't really expressed any view --- what I peronslly prefer is anythng that will get through from an apartment or a disaster area --- and FT8 / JS8 seem to be the current winners of that popularit contest.

 

Spread Spectrum,............ become MORE mainstream,................?????

Tell me more about this Spread Spectrum, what freq(s) should I listen to?