[Elecraft] K3 in the CQWW contest

[Geoffrey Mackenzie-Kennedy]

Hi John,

While I agree with much of your argument, there could be a price to pay in 
the form of Equipment Type Approval.if further regulations were imposed on 
the Amateur Service. Without doubt Type Approval would increase the selling 
price of the "black boxes", and put an end to the use of homebrewed 
equipment.

As matters stand, the Amateur Service is viewed by most Authorities as a 
"Self Regulatory" Service. The standards for amateur transmitter harmonic 
and spurious levels are intended to protect Services other than the Amateur 
Service from interference caused by amateur transmitters, a fact that I am 
sure you already know. There is talk about reducing these levels.

IMHO the problem of clicks, splatter ad nauseum must be solved somehow by us 
amateurs without having further regulations imposed. For example here in 
Europe deliberate jamming is a serious problem, but attempts have been and 
are being made by amateurs to find the culprits.

73,
Geoff
GM4ESD


juergen piezo <plebian99 at yahoo.com> wrote on Tuesday, December 01, 2009 at 
8:35 PM:



Hi Matt

Most of us are black box operators. We need regulations for the amateur 
service that specifies how our transmitters must perform, just like every 
other HF spectrum  user.

Its amazing how the amateur service holds its head up high as some sort of 
technical  demigod society, yet we cant even clean up our own camp.

Arguments that transmitter standards interferes with technical development 
is a nonsense argument in my view.

Its time that the ARRL lobbied the FCC  for standards for amateur 
transmitters, and these standards should include keyclicks and SSB 
transmitter and amplifier IMD levels.

We know keyclicks are unacceptable, why would it be so hard  to specify by 
how much keyclicks should be suppressed by  and what the maximum bandwidth 
should be? How does setting such standards interfere with technical 
development?

We already have standards for harmonic and spurious  levels. The FCC said a 
long time ago that we cant interfere with televisions or other services if 
our transmitters are crap. They set harmonic levels for transmitters. Its 
now time for them to say its also unacceptable for hams to interfere with 
hams using crap equipment.

Its a disgrace that anyone can go buy a cheap 12 volt mobile radio and then 
go buy a cheap RM Italy amplifier  and then get on the ham bands and call 
CQDX. Its equally sad that such operators think that they are legally 
entitled to do so  without worrying about the  consequences to others. Its 
selfish and not in the ham spirit. How is it fair that this kind of brain 
dead operation is classed as "technical experimenting" when it causes so 
much  interference to others?

Why the law stinks, is that if I decided to  tune up on this individual for 
1 hour I would be breaking the law because I am causing deliberate 
interference. Yet if I use a class C CB amplifier with a substandard 
transmitter it would be okay to cause interference all day  and I am legal.

We need to wake up to ourselves and  our regulations.

John