[CW] FCC Actions - OOOOPS?

[Donald Chester]

>From: N2EY at aol.com

>As for Incentive Licensing, it was actually a return to the earlier system
>that existed before 1953.

Not entirely.  Before 1953 (or was it 1951?),  the "Class A," later renamed 
"Advanced" ticket was required to operate phone in the 75m and 20m bands.  
Lower class  licensees could use the entire band, operating any mode but 
phone.

Up until right after the War, 40m was CW only, so there was no phone band 
there.  There was no 15m band at all until some time after the War.  So 
Generals (Class B) were limited to 160 and 10m for phone  operation.

But after the war, LORAN had about taken over 160m and there was serious 
consideration to delete it as an amateur allocation altogether.  The only 
thing that saved it was the tenuous agreement to finally let amateurs share 
the band with LORAN on a very limited basis.  Loran was placed on 160m 
mainly because amateurs had been shut down for the duration of the War, and 
160m was a convenient vacant spot to put it.  It originally was supposed to 
have been taken off the band after the war emergency, but ships and boats 
mainly in the Gulf of Mexico had grown accustomed to it during the war, and 
the Coast Guard pressed the FCC into allowing it to continue after the war.

Interestingly, according to articles in early post-War QST's, one of the 
FCC's justifications for granting amateurs the 15m band was "partial 
compensation" for the loss of 160m.

So essentially, between the end of the war and 1951(or 53?), Generals had 
access to phone only on 10m, and of course that band is closed over much of 
the sunspot cycle.

In 1953(?) the FCC decided to open all phone bands up to Generals.  The 
Advanced was continued, much as it is today, with no further new licences to 
be issued.  Extra was a trophy licence to hang on the wall for the ego, but 
carried no additional operator privileges.

After about 10 years of unrestricted licensing, amateur radio had gone 
through a growth spurt as a result of the creation of the Novice class, 
under the same proceeding in 1953.  The bands were getting crowded and it 
appeared that operator proficiency was decreasing, so some of the folks at 
ARRL began to question whether we should go back to the  restricted phone 
bands, as before 1953(?).  The ARRL petition for rulemaking proposed to do 
just that.

But the FCC decided that instead of going back to the concept of "Class A" 
phone bands, they created the present licence class subband segments.

This is quite a different concept from the original ARRL proposal.

IMO what the FCC should have done was to basically adopt the ARRL proposal 
for restricted phone bands, but grandfather all existing Generals to full 
phone privileges, requiring the higher grade only for new  licences granted 
after the effective date of the ruling.  Most of the hard feelings regarding 
Incentive  Licensing were from Generals who lost existing privileges and had 
to upgrade to get back what they already had.

Under the pre-1953(?) system, Incentive Licensing would not have affected CW 
operation at all.

I need to dig out the old QST's and see whether the  change went into effect 
in 1951 or 53.  I  seem to remember 1951, but that was a  long time ago and 
it's been a long time since I have even thought about it.

73,

Don k4kyv