[Boatanchors] Band Width

[Jim Wilhite]

As I recall there was an attempt, or at least, discussion of writing rules 
to do exactly what you described Sandy.  However, it met with a lot of 
resistance over the ability of amateurs to actually understand how to 
measure the bandwidth accurately, by a lot of AM operators and the Hi Fi SSB 
operators.  They used a case in point, the measurement of Peak Power.  Today 
the great majority do not understand how to measure it nor exactly what the 
rule meaning is.

We all know the intent of the rule but, like splatter, it is not clearly 
understood.  Another case in point is the operation near the band edge.  I 
regularly hear stations who are so close to the edge that products of their 
signal is out of band, a no, no in decades past.  I was, and am today, 
against a very restrictive bandwidth rule because of the lack of knowledge 
on the part of my peers.   AM operators were against it due to the proposal 
of ~ 5 KC max which would have been a grandfather clause rather included in 
the proposed rule.  There are a great number of hams whose bandwidth far 
exceeds what is necessary for AM operation, not to mention those who over 
modulate and cause buckshot and splatter.

What is needed is hams who understand the properties of a technically good 
signal and the desire to emit such.

73

Jim
W5JO



-----Original Message----- 

As an ARRL "Official Observer" I am alarmed.  But what to do now as the
bandwidth requirements are so vaguely referred to by Part 97!!  This
leaves us in a quandry.  Should the "League" pressure the Commission to
rewrite part 97 and be more specific as should have been done from the
beginning?  Frequency tolerance and bandwidths have gotten more and more
"precise" since we old timers were using vacuum tube equipment!  Is
there and aid to possibly having FCC monitoring stations like there used
to be?  Maybe the budget will not permit it?  This needs to be attended
to before it gets completely "out of hand" and will be very hard to
implement in the future?

73 to all,