FWD: Re: [CW] An AM View of the World

[Will White]

"Galasso, Phil" wrote:

> <snip, snip, snip>

> that's why we have bandplans. Why, though, do we need to ossify
> those bandplans by force of government regulation? There is something
> radically wrong with amateur radio regulation when even Communist states
> (e.g., Cuba, China) decline to do this, yet the "free" U.S.A. insists on it.

Cuba has about 2000 hams, and a population of about 10 million.  China,
amazingly, with a population of over 1.25 billion, or five times that of the US,
has fewer than one thousand (1000!) licensed amateurs.  You have to wonder what
it takes to get licensed over there!  If freedom means access, which in the case
of ham radio bands it definitely does, then we are the most free nation. Not
only do we have the largest total ham population (Japan not included because of
the way they count licenses, i.e. everyone who ever was issued a call, living or
dead) with almost 700K, but compared to China a vast, huge enormous percentage
and proportion of our citizenry are licensed.  Figuring US population at about
280 million, 1 in 400 Americans is a licensed ham, or 1/4th of 1%, .0025%. In
"free" China (not ROC-Taiwan, the other free China ;)  1 in 1,250,000 is a ham,
about 8/100,000ths of 1%, .0000008% of total pop. Put another way, we have 3,125
times as many hams in our population than they in theirs, so I think legally
required HF subbands, which in this country are supposed to help preserve
everyone's Amendment One rights to speak, beep, print, et cetera, are a bit more
reasonable, fair, and necessary than maybe requiring membership in a political
party and a "background" check that would make Kafka and John Ashcroft blush to
geton the air!

>  Far more problematic is contest operation, in which contesters
> monopolize every available frequency, rendering the bands (except the WARC
> bands, which, by VOLUNTARY BANDPLANS, are contest-free)

Only because no-one sponsors WARC band contests.  CQ, ARRL, RSGB, RAC, WIA,
NZART, etc. have had the wisdom and restraint not to. But if a big enough
respectable outfit were to sponsor, promote, advertise WARC contests, the whole
of HF would be useless more than a dozen weekends a year. We're just lucky, I
guess.

>  Rather than lightening
> the FCC's workload, this would likely guarantee lifetime employment for
> several more Special Counsels which you and I would fund as taxpayers.
> For those who are Libertarians, the result of total deregulation can
> be observed at any time by tuning your dial to 27 MHz."

I don't know what Riley Hollingsworth's   pay grade is (E-something. . .) but I
can tell you that attorneys don't make a career out of working for the US
Government for the pay. He could make several times what he is making at FCC if
he went to work for a big NY/DC/LA telecom law firm

>
>
> Please extract your head from your butt and do some listening on our HF
> bands. Or try to work phone on 40 at night!
>
> 73,
> Phil Galasso
> K2PG

Try to work CW on 40 at night! Right down to 7000 I hear, more often all the
time, SSB signals in Japanese, Korean, and Spanish.  It is my fondest hope,
ham-wise, that at next years ITU conference 40 gets realigned, bumping the
broadcasters up to 7200 and above. Not only does this make 7100-7150 workable at
night, but <7100 too since the band will be less crowded and the wideband folks
can enjoy more space, more globally (and w/o working split!), and more free of
annoying CW hets, and CW and other NB ops can have 30 or 40 KHz in peace!  I
just think it is a very bad idea to do *anything* about 40M unilaterally until a
new allocation plan is made internationally. Wait until that is done, hopefully
at WRC-03, before making any decisions/commitments on sub-bands, voluntary or
statutory. It will be an even bigger mess than it is now if we put the cart
before the horse, as it were.

73

--
Will White, KD7BFX
Seattle WA US
King County, Grid CN87tq
ITU Zone 6, CQ Zone 3
***************************************************
"The wireless telegraph is not difficult to understand.
The ordinary telegraph is like a very long cat.
You pull the tail in New York, and it meows in Los Angeles.
The wireless is the same, only without the cat."
                                                      - Albert Einstein
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