[CALV-AUXCOMM] Some Digital Modes Under Attack

[Shawn Donley]

All,


I recently received a communications from the Amateur Radio Safety Foundation (the group that founded and supports WINLINK) regarding a filing by N9NB with the FCC questioning the legitimacy of WINLINK and some other digital modes under Part 97 rules.  The objection is that WINLINK message content cannot be decoded except by the intended receiving station and thereby is a form of encrypted communications not permitted under Part 97.  He also raises concerns over national security and the possibility of criminal activity using amateur radio communications.


PACTOR and a few other modes would fall into this category.


You can read about it at:


https://www.rrmediagroup.com/News/NewsDetails/NewsID/17667


and


https://winlink.org/FCC_Action


One hole I see in N9NB's argument is if you were to use a digital mode open to 3rd party monitoring like FLDIGI or even plain old AX25 packet, the text in the message could have already been encrypted by other means before the digital message was composed.


You can form your own opinion on the controversy.  Should be interesting to see how this plays out. The Amateur Radio Safety Foundation has gone to battle stations over N9NB's filing.


Shawn

N3AE