[CW] Digital Baud Rate on HF, ARRL Proposal Bears Watching

[Donald Chester]

See Dave Sumner's editorial that  will appear in the September issue of QST:

http://www.arrl.org/files/file/QST/This%20Month%20in%20QST/September%202013/
ItSeemsToUs.pdf

If 2.8 kHz digital signals are to be allowed in the CW bands, what is the
point of even continuing our present sub-bands? They might just as well
allow SSB as well, or better still, go the route the rest of the world has
taken and eliminate sub-bands altogether and let amateurs work it out
amongst themselves with voluntary band plans.

One approach to avoid enumerated bandwidth limitation would be to remove the
baud limit as Sumner proposed, but then follow the example of the provision
that first allowed NBFM to be used in the HF phone bands, with a vague
specification that a "digital" transmission not exceed the bandwidth of
regular wide-shift Baudot RTTY, which has been permitted on the amateur
bands since shortly after WWII.

That 2.8 kHz limit on 60m is supposedly there to subject amateurs to the
same technical standards that exist with the government services we share
the "band" with. From the outset I was nervous when this was imposed on 60m,
that once the precedent was established in the amateur rules, it could
eventually work its way into the other bands.  We need to make sure this
doesn't turn out to be the next step towards a "universal" bandwidth limit
of 2.8 kHz for all modes. Recall the now-defunct ARRL bandwidth petition of
a few years ago.

There is no guarantee the FCC would even go along with this. Now that most
commercial and government traffic is via satellite, I don't think the FCC
attaches enough importance to the HF part of the spectrum, that the agency
would be willing to take on the additional task of further micro-managing
amateur radio, or CB for that matter, beyond keeping transmissions from
those "services" from interfering with users outside our allocated bands.
This is especially true following the "Sequester". Note how they de-licensed
CB decades ago and now take so little interest in enforcing Part 15
regulations to limit harmful interference from spurious emissions produced
by power lines and consumer junk like plasma TVs and touch lamps, and the
FCC seemed perfectly willing to allow BPL to trash up the entire HF
spectrum. Back in the days when the monitoring stations were fully manned,
amateur regulations were strictly enforced and the FCC was so nit-picky
about the rules, HF spectrum was essential to strategic communications and
commercial traffic, and a few hams or CBers with dirty signals could do real
damage. Now, about all that would be impacted would be broadcast radio and
TV. Even OTA TV is now used by a minority of viewers with the rest relying
on cable, so TVI isn't the major issue it used to be. Most broadcast
listening these days is done in the car, so fixed noise sources would have
limited impact on broadcast radio as well. Therefore, it is doubtful that
the FCC would be enthusiastic about getting involved with amateur HF
spectrum matters if it appears that it might cause them more hassle.


Don k4kyv