ARRL speaks on Regulation by Bandwidth

Which Readex survey, George?

The same bonus is in effect for digital modes on FD. Yet digital accounts for only a tiny percentage of FD QSOs.

Note that FD includes VHF/UHF, not just HF, and 'phone is much more popular above 30 Mhz. Yet look at the QSO ratio overall!

IIRC, the 1996 Readex survey (if that's the one you meant) asked 'how often do you use Morse Code on the air' and gave three choices: Regularly, Rarely, Never.

It didn't define those terms. Didn't specify HF vs. VHF/UHF. Didn't ask about other modes, or even if the ham got on the air at all!

Not a very good way to determine mode use, IMHO.

Why?

Look at the results of the 3Y0X DXpedition - almost half the QSOs were made using CW. Look at the scores of the various contests like November SS, ARRL and CQWW DX, etc - and see how many QSOs and participants there are for each mode when separate weekends are used for each mode.

Or look at the ARRL 160 meter contest, note the QSO totals and countries worked - and realize that's a CW-only contest!

73 de Jim, N2EY

 

Jim,

I think the summary was published in QST sometime in 2004. There was a lot of posting about it on QRZ. I never saw the actual questions although I did ask the ARRL for a copy of the survey form that was used (never got it ) but if they were using choices like Regularly, Rarely and Never I would question the 40% number as being a total of Regulary and Rarely. I would like to know the percentage of those who use it regulary though.

The low use of digital modes during is a bit surprising, especially if there was a point subsidy involved. It might be that overall use of digital modes among hams on a day to day basis are much lower than we think it is.

73
George
K3UD

 

Maybe in Dallas they're not used much.

But in other areas where I've driven, they *are* used. And the whole point of them is to be less crowded than the other lanes, to encourage folks to carpool.

Is carpooling an idea that should be encouraged or discouraged?

So you have 5 lanes each way, yet reserving a lane for carpools isn't enough?

Let's look at the math....

If the 5th lane is completely unused, opening it up to all traffic would allow, at most, a 20% increase in the number of vehicles on the road. In practice the increase is less. So maybe 15% more capacity is added. Carppols can beat that easily.

The amount of fuel used depends on how fast you're going. Obviously, sitting stopped in traffic, or crawling along, wastes fuel. But once you get past about 40-50 mph, going faster takes more fuel, not less. Eliminating vehicles by carpooling saves much more, too.

The plain fact of the matter is that wide modes do not coexist well with narrow ones.

Another fact is that wide modes simply use up more of the band, meaning fewer people can use the band at any given time.

Actually, if you look at the HF bands as a whole, the wide modes have access to more than half the space.

If the entire bandspace is opened to wide modes, the number of possible users goes *down*!

The point is that it's not just about popularity, or what people took tests for. It's about incentives and promoting spectrum efficiency.

As in "no data modes in the 'phone bands"?

What you're proposing is similar to the ARRL proposal, without the unleashed robots. It's miles away from the CTT 'free-for-all'.

What you're proposing is much like the ARRL proposal! Except it doesn't unleash the robots all over the band.

And the fact is that the opposition to RM-11305 is even greater than the opposition to RM-11306. Both ARRL and CTT have simply failed to convince the majority of those who bothered to comment.

Majority? Heck, the opposition is more than 80%!!

All sorts of hams with all sorts of different interests and ideas have been unified in their opposition to these proposals.

Tells ya something, doesn't it?

----

How about this:

Bottom of each band is for CW only

Next part is for CW and conventional (narrow) digital, with digital primary.

Top of the band is for 'phone and analog image.

And in between, a "free for all" part where all modes are allowed.

Two bands for a sampling:

For 80 meters:

3500-3575: CW only

3575-3650: Digital/CW

3650-3750: All modes

3750-4000: 'Phone and analog image.

Novices and Tech Pluses segment moved to 3525-3575.

40 meters:

7000-7050: CW only

7050-7100: Digital/CW

7100-7150: All modes

7150-7300: 'Phone and analog image.

Novices and Tech Pluses segment moved to 7025-7075.

Etc.

Why not? Maybe those numbers need some work, but what about the basic concept?

We would get to see how well sharing works in those segments where all modes would be allowed, without turning over the entire band to all modes.

73 de Jim, N2EY

 

800 published questions?

Wow, they never published any questions when I was taking the tests. We had to study the material from which the questions were drawn.

Get over it.

Respectfully, Ed k3tj

 

Gentlemen,

Consider that Vic Poor is the person that Sumner, Rinaldo, Haynie, and others at Headquarters collaborated with, and designated to head, the ARRL Ad Hoc HF Digital Committee to illegally write a bandplan to petition for new FCC rules in an attempt to force everyone else  to operate where and how the "father" ARRL decides they should, even going so far as giving preference to the minority Winlink network (i.e. "semi-automatic" Email robots everywhere) that ARRL had already adopted for their NTS and ARESComm uses. No more "obsolete" RTTY, CW or SSB. Just send that DX station an Email and submit the reply Email for DXCC...

What does all this tell you about the people now heading the ARRL?

What they have done is such a grave travesty against amateur radio there is hardly any choice but to either force them out somehow or cut off financial support to the ARRL. (I can hardly believe I am having to write this after 50 years of supporting the ARRL!)

Their arrogant Reply Comments further reveal their true nature.

Houston - we have a serious problem...

73, Skip KH6TY

 

Well, I'm 51, and not quite as loose in the joints as I used to be.

At least they're being honest about it! Better than promising a New Golden Age...

That wasn't proposed by ARRL. In fact, I don't think it was proposed by anyone.

Back in 1998, ARRL proposed a *four* class system - Tech, General, Advanced, Extra, with the following features:

- Existing Novices and Tech Pluses would get free automatic no-test upgrades to General

- Code speed for General to be 5 wpm

- Code speed for Extra and Advanced to be 12 wpm

FCC's NPRM that followed proposed the same four license classes, too. It did not propose auto upgrades and asked for input on what the code tests should be.

But when the Report and Order came out, FCC went to a three-class system, despite having proposed four classes in the NPRM!

IIRC, the rules require that the question pools be at least 10 times the size of the test. IOW, a 50 question test requires at least a 500 question pool.

The reason for such a large pool is to offer an incentive to actually learn the material, rather than just memorize the right answers.

If you look at the pools closely, you'll see that many of the questions are rewordings and different values applied to the same basic problem. For example, there are at least 10 variations on the same very basic Thevenin equivalent problem. If someone understands Ohm's Law at a basic level, those problems are a snap.

In the bad old days before the actual multiple choice Q&A used in the tests were published, FCC issued 'study guides' containing essay questions that indicated the areas the test would cover. The Extra study guide from the 1960s comprised 279 essay questions. You were also expected to know the rules and band edges, too.

I don't think it's a question of 'stupid'. I think you may want to reexamine the study methods. Studying the tests works for people who have good memories for facts. But it's usually more effective to actually study the underlying material of the tests.

ARRL didn't ask FCC to close off the Advanced to new issues. FCC didn't even propose that in the NPRM.

If you think General-to-Extra is too big a step, blame the right folks: FCC

It's important to differentiate between subbands and band plans.

Subbands are regulatory, like 7000-7025 being for Extras only.

Bandplans are voluntary agreements, like 7040 being the QRP CW frequency.

RM-11306 proposes changing the mode subbands. It does not include a bandplan.

RM-11305 proposes eliminating mode subbands. It does not include a bandplan either.

Because we're expected to actually read the proposal...

RM-11305 does the same, eliminating limitations on automatic and semi-automatic control.

Agreed!

Everybody comes up with bad ideas now and then.

When is the next director election in your division?

73 de Jim, N2EY

 

Jim,

You speak as someone who has actual disaster experience.

N6CRR misses (or omits) the point that you CANNOT have a Winlink station without a licensed ham to run it. He also mis-states the part about encryption. (The request was for above 50 MHz, only.) And then there is that bothersome "overlooked" detail that VHF/UHF carries local Winlink traffic. If it can reach the destination or get to the Internet via VHF/UHF, it never hits HF.

By his post, AB0WR plainly indicates that he has no disaster experience. Sending a "runner" is basically the most un-workable idea I have ever seen or heard proposed by anyone -- EVER. In one relatively small impact area of a tornado, I personally spent over 30 minutes going about 1/2 mile "line of sight" distance. That is WITH good, accurate, detailed maps AND a GPS -- AFTER the tornado had passed. Try dodging downed trees, debris, and power lines. Imagine trying that to go even five miles after a hurricane, after a mile wide tornado hits, or DURING a hurricane! Radio is the ONLY viable answer.

As a Texas RACES member and Alternate DRO, I was headed for the local city hall / EOC to receive and pass the city request for state response, and to coordinate the state response until DPS arrived on scene. This was AFTER I had been requested by a local police officer to call for an ambulance (under mutual aid) for a trapped motorist -- which I immediately did on the local RACES SKYWARN net. The official request for assistance to the state was passed on amateur frequencies -- as were specific requests for X ambulances to specific locations, X pieces of fire equipment to specific locations, X police units to specific locations, power company to specific locations, gas company to specific locations, Red Cross, Salvation Army, and various other responders/responses.

That small city had no power, no lights, no phones, no police radio dispatch, and no fire radio dispatch. We could not wait one or two hours for a "runner" to get from the area to a place where he/she could call someone (or meet with someone)! THAT folks, as those of us who have been there know, is the NORMAL situation in a disaster.

Then, AB0WR proposes that the list of people needing airlift be given to someone on the aircraft. How did the aircraft know it was needed? What special supplies did it know to bring? How did the external aircraft "supplier" plan WHAT to send, HOW MANY to send, WHERE to send them, and -- when demand exceeded supply -- WHICH patients needed IMMEDIATE airlift? How did the external planners know WHERE to take EACH patient, based upon injuries and capabilities of all available hospitals?

That information is REQUIRED. Those planning response need it NOW. No, they do not need names -- but they do need age, injuries, condition, and SPECIFIC locations. (Casualties rarely happen in one location.)

Using NTS is slow, cumbersome, and personnel intensive. Voice networks have their own "lag" time. In many cases during Katrina, multiple relays were needed. (Good net discipline would not have pained the net by doing traffic on the net frequency, however.)

If I combine e-mail with voice "heads-up" and/or follow-up, I have the details in the e-mail and the confirmation on voice. I have used less air time on both voice and data networks -- and I have "tagged" everyone whom I believe should have the information. The e-mail delivery is relatively quick, and faster than delivery by voice -- especially to multiple recipients. The voice "heads up" ensures that it is read in a timely manner.

Someone OUTSIDE the impacted area can get on the telephone and chase what we need. As the person INSIDE the impacted area, it is frankly DUMB for me to try to run the show. The operator inside the area collects needs. The operator outside the area "collects" items / people to fill the needs, and reports progress.

That methodology worked VERY well during Katrina.

 

This graph is quite accurate, though I dislike the X axis calibration in miles. What is actually shown is performance versus Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) on an essentially ground wave path.

Clearly, any sky-wave path would be much longer. For that reason, it would not offer an accurate measure of throughput versus SNR.

The point that is clearly shown by the graph is that the newer and faster modes are usable at MUCH lower SNR than the original PACTOR I mode. (The PACTOR I graph -- up to the first drop -- would also be indicative of HF Packet performance, as the two modes use similar tone spacing. PACTOR I drops data rate / baud rate, while HF Packet does not.)

 

In point of fact, most digital modes are low power. 50 Watts is just about the maximum, and less is the norm. About 35 Watts is a good average. It is HIGHLY counterproductive to add an amplifier -- especially when using a multitone modem.

Bottom line: Linearity is MUCH more important than power.

 

Sorry, that is not the way it has been sold to the emergency agencies. All you need is a ham to set it up. From then on it is just an email router. You can use your own Outlook Express on your own PC to send your own emails. No ham required.

Once encryption hits the ham bands above 50Mhz would anyone like to make book on how long it will be before it hits the bands below 50Mhz? My bet would be less than 18months - most of it FCC review time.

ROFL!!

Someday perhaps you'll learn not to stick your foot in your mouth, Larry.

I suggest you go get a copy of the ARRL Emergency Communications Course, Level 1 and take a scan of Page 68, Message Security and Privacy, Paragraph 3.

When you get over your hard-on about always trying to say everything I post is wrong, you'll be a lot more credible.

ROFLMAO!!!

And this was to deliver casuality lists? What was someone going to do with those at that point in the emergency ANYWAY??

Did you even bother to read what the subject being discussed was? Or did you just jump in with both feet trying to prove me wrong?

As a RACES member and an alternate DRO you should have taken the ARRL ECC Level 1 course. Your retention of the material is suspect. You might want to review it again.

First, I didn't say the list of people *needing* airlift be given to someone on the aircraft. I said a list of people *GETTING ON THE AIRCRAFT* be given to someone on the aircraft.

Second, how DID it know it was needed? How did the Coast Guard helicopters in New Orleans know they were needed, Larry? Be honest!!

Yeah, Larry. Tell us all what those airlift helicopters in New Orleans had for special supplies. We'll all be interested in knowing what they did NOT offload while picking up evacuees.

ROFL!!! Yeah, Larry. How did they know at the staging area   ***WHICH*** patients needed immediate airlift?

***** NEWS FLASH!!!!! *****

They don't determine at the staging area **who** needs evacuating. That is done by the on-site triage team.

H*ll, Larry, I was taught this at age 11 at a Civil Air Patrol campout in the mid-60's by Air Force medics. Rear echelon doctors don't decide who is first on the evac helo's at the front line.

Oh, and Larry...... the subject at hand was NOT what to send or where to send it, but who to evacuate. Focus!! Focus!!

They are taken to the next triage site AWAY from the front lines. Then dispatch decisions are made by DOCTORS who diagnose and then treat or dispatch.

Good lord, any one who ever watched MASH on TV knows that much, Larry.

It's not any different at the site of a major car wreck. The doctors in the ER don't decide who is going to be loaded in the ambulances first, the EMT's on site do! Sometimes it's even the Sheriff's deputy's that make the decision on-site.

Again, your hard-on to prove everything I say is wrong is leading you down the path of making wild claims that just ruins any credibility you might possibly have, Larry.

Yes, Larry. But that information has no need for privacy nor does it require huge spreadsheet lists to be sent via email.

And, in fact, most of the information you list is NOT needed by the planners of the evac. All they need to know is how many and where. Age, injuries, and condition will be determined at the staging area AWAY from the front lines. If that information is determined at the front line location it is easier and FAR more useful to send it along with the evac unit.

Dispatching the evac unit from the staging area to pick up specific people is a waste of time. My gosh, I've been there. Two ambulances dispatched from the hospital at the same time are not guaranteed to arrive at the evac site at the same time!! If the first one there is tasked with picking up the the person with the lesser priority, the process has just been messed up big TIME!!!! There is no guarantee that during the interval between the dispatch and the arrival that even more people with worse injuries might not arrive at the evac site!!

If you are not in an *immediate* evacuation situation, so what? An email may sit in someone's computer for a LONG time before someone reads it. There is actually NO guarantee it will EVER be read. A person tasked with delivering a message will either insure it gets delivered, and a reply taken and sent, or will insure that the originating end is notified of non-delivery. There's no such guarantee with email!

And you have just wasted effort. If you make the contact using VOICE, the email is a waste of bandwidth AND time for the person on the other end. I've had my butt chewed for that too many times.

And how do you prevent multiple response efforts with multiple recipients? That's something we have identified in our SET's. Send the same message to three different people and you are quite likely to wind up with 3 Jeeps and six volunteers instead of 1 Jeep and 2 volunteers.

If you have ACTUALLY been involved in emergency operations I would have expected you to be aware of this problem. That is why there should be a DESIGNATED Logistics staff with a DESIGNATED communication center handling this kind of information. It flows UP the line to the decision maker and DOWN the line to the group charged to carry out the associated task.

Have you actually taken any of the ARRL EC courses? This is covered in detail in the courses.

If you are determining "who needs to know" information and trying to inform them all then you ARE trying to run the show. Even the Level 1 ICS section makes that clear.

You've just contradicted yourself in two adjacent paragraphs. Yes, as the operator inside the area, you should collect needs - and then pass them to the operator outside the area. That operator will then pass the information along the appropriate chain of command for integration into the response plan and tactical operation. As an inside the area operator, YOU wouldn't be sending emails to multiple people outside the area depending upon YOUR decision thus breaking down the ICS or NIMS process.

Well, we know now that email did NOT serve FEMA very well. Too many people waited till the next day (or even longer) to read emails conveying immediate action information.  

The people in charge didn't even have the simplest automated email forwarding capabilities that have been in Unix since the late 1960's. So subordinates didn't get the needed information EITHER.

Heck, none of the Windows email programs I am familar with even *have* the capability of automatic forwarding of all emails to an alternate control site.

And yet the Winlink enthusiasts tout the system as the saviour of EMCOMM?

How does an Incident Commander pass off control if he can't even auto forward his email to the next person? Without the auto forward capability how do you notify everyone involved in the emergency to send the emails to someone else?

Take your hard-on offline Larry and get over it. You obviously have a lot to offer. But it gets lost in the bull dust you throw up trying to prove other people wrong because you have a grudge.

You may have been involved in more natural disasters than I have. But I have been directly involved in the emergency operations involved with the loss of a major telephone toll office -- three times. If you want to see a major operation, watch what happens when a toll office carrying telephone traffic for half a state goes down. The telephone companies have REAL procedures and best-practices that get followed - by the book. The phone companies knew about incident command procedures long before they became popular with emergency agencies - they just weren't called incident command. And those procedures didn't involve using email to coordinate anything except perhaps public announcements by the company executives.  

tim ab0wr

 

Larry,

I now dislike the x-axis myself because so few understand that it means an actual "field measurement" related to the S/N ratio. Because of this, I will replot the data in coming days as a value against relative S/N ratio and post to my website shortly.

Dr Ed AE4TM

 

Tim, remember there were two Katrina efforts. The one up north of the lake 100 miles from New Orleans (or in Baton Rouge 90 miles from New Orleans), and the one in New Orleans where people were dying, people were getting shot at, buildings were being set afire, looting was going on, and there was 8 feet of water in many of the streets. What might have worked 100 miles away did not have a chance where I was.

I don't take anything away from fantastic effort in Mississippi and North of New Orleans. Those people did more because they had more to work with and because of their dedication and hard work. I am saying that all the "lessons learned" didn't scratch the surface of the New Orleans situation. If another Katrina happened tomorrow, the same thing would happen except that 2/3 of the population is already evacuated. WinLink to to the New Orleans scenario is like an electric can opener on the moon.

 

...and you won't get it!

The summary was in the June 2004 edition of QST. When I asked for the actual survey results, here is the response I got from Rick Lindquist N1RL (I asked him because he referenced the same survey in his January 2006 article regarding "more meaningful" entry-level privileges) --

"The surveys referenced in the League's comments filing on WT Docket 05-235 are not available on our Web site or in the annual report because they are proprietary by agreement with the firm that conducts the surveys for us. They also are hard-copy documents and quite voluminous."
Rick Lindquist N1RL

When I asked the Chief Executive Officer of the ARRL, he suggested I look at the October 2004 issue of Advertising Matters (a .pdf file that is sent to advertisers). It has some interesting information gleaned from the Readex sruvey, but it is buried pretty deep in the web site and there is virtually no chance of stumbling across it by casually surfing through the web site. The link is http://www.arrl.org/ads/ad-matters/Ad-Matters-Oct-2004.pdf

(There is a reprint of the June 2004 article in the .pdf file just in case you threw away your copy.)

I guess if you spend thousands of dollars with the League you are more entitled to this information than us folks who only spend $39.00!

Scott NØIU

 

I think there are a lot of groups out there that are more important then us that pay $39!

This whole issue has shown how out of control the ARRL is, and that pdf just shows that the members are just a small part of the $$$ generating part of the ARRL monster. They say that they are for Ham Radio, when in reality, the ARRL is just another $$$ sucking bloodsucker, looking for more blood.

If the (83%) that the ARRL says they represent, gets in the way, then too bad, money comes first.

Ham Radio is just a route to "more money" for them at this point. They could care less about us, and ARE selling us out for the "Dollar Bill".

The folks in Newington have traded MegaHertz for Megabucks. I am a member, but the ARRL leadership is the enemy of Amateur Radio. Very sad indeed.

Now, what to do about it? They have to GO. The reply shows that they won't listen, and the only remedy is to throw the leadership out, or throw the ARRL out.

Something has to be done, before they throw this hobby into the toilet.

73 - Bob

 

Thanks for the link.

I looked at the "Advertising Matters" thing, and now it makes sense.

The survey wasn't about opinions! It was primarily a *marketing* survey!!

Nowadays, advertisers want to know who reads your magazine, what they do, etc. Otherwise they won't advertise in your mag - they'll go to the competitor, who has the info.

So spending good money to do marketing surveys is smart marketing in 2006, because it brings in the advertising. And such info *is* proprietary, because you don't want the competition to see it!

If you think QST is full of ads, pick up any mass-media magazine at the checkout line in the supermarket and see how much they have. Note how much those mags cost, even though they have many times the circulation of QST and can charge incredible rates for the ads.

But that's kinda beside the point.

The survey info about how many hams use Morse Code is essentially useless, IMHO. We don't know the actual questions asked (HF? VHF? UHF?), nor who the survey group was (all hams? ARRL members only? Random sample or selected distribution?) nor how it compares to other modes.

How so? The "Advertising Matters" info is what the advertisers get, not the raw survey info.

It's clear to me now what's lacking. The Readex survey wasn't really about what the membership or the amateur community thinks, it's about what advertisers want to know about us.

What's really needed is a comprehensive survey, like the one done back in 1975.

73 de Jim, N2EY