[Elecraft] FCC 60m Band Change Rules Published InFederalRegister On 03 February 2012 - Correction

[Rick Bates]

First off, I'm not a lawyer (and reading it provided a headache) but my
interpretation is:

If USB, select the suppressed carrier on your display (K3).
If CW, go to the CHANNEL CENTER (up 1.5 KHz from suppressed carrier).
If PSK (RTTY) or PACTOR III, set as per USB; the suppressed carrier.

*BUT* make darned sure that your 'data' mode uses USB, not LSB and that your
display shows suppressed carrier in USB.  (i.e. when in FSK, my TS0940
displays the MARK frequency, which would be WRONG.)

Answering a call on exactly the same frequency (in CW) is no guarantee of
being correct (or legal).  You are responsible for YOUR station only.

Pactor III will consume most if not all of the bandwidth, one user per
channel at a time.

Now there is no (obvious) mention of what tones must be used for PSK; there
is only mention of bandwidth (2.8 KHz from suppressed carrier on the UPPER
side).  So if one station were to use say something in the 500 Hz audio
range while another were to use the 900 Hz range while a third used
something in the 1200 Hz range; each of those bandwidths is WELL within the
2.8 KHz limit and *should* be legal while allowing three or more QSO's at
the same time.  If we are limited to using tones in the 1500 Hz range, it
limits us to one station at a time.  I didn't see such limitations.

So since it is unclear, one must pay special attention to the bandwidth and
audio frequencies used to ensure the signal is well within the channel
limits.

I would suspect that this will be hashed about by numerous folks for the
next month and hopefully the FCC (informally) or ARRL will clarify before
there is an issue.  

In the meantime, it's mostly a guessing game unless one understands the
inverted reverse convoluted legalese used in the R&O and resulting post in
the Federal Register.  In a perfect world, they'd say "Here is the channel
bandwidth, don't go beyond the edges."  They didn't.

This appears to be a grand experiment to see if we can share NTIA channels
as well as offering a band between 80 and 40 meters for hurricane nets etc.
I would suggest EXTREME caution for CW and data ops until this shakes out.
If in doubt, don't.

Rick wa6nhc

Caveat:  You're on your own.  Period.  ;-)


-----Original Message-----
From: Fred Jensen

I think we all need to be careful.  In the case of USB, we put our 
"suppressed carrier" [i.e. dial reading on a K3] 1.5 KHz below the 
authorized center frequency.  The USB energy is above that and fills the 
2.8 MHz channel, and it's "one QSO per channel."

For CW, we are told to put our keyed RF signal *on* the channel center 
frequency.  There is only one "center frequency" per channel, so again, 
it's "one QSO per channel."  CW and USB seem pretty clear.

The two data modes aren't quite as clear.  "Data", as the FCC uses it is 
a 2K80J2D emission which wiki.radioreference.com defines as "HF 
PACTOR-III."  Again, the emission fills the channel and it's "one QSO 
per channel."  The FCC's "RTTY" is a 60H0J2B emission which 
radioreference.com defines as PSK31, which precludes what we hams define 
as RTTY [45.5 baud 170 Hz shift FSK].

What's not clear is where to place your PSK31 signal.  If your PSK31 
signal extends upward from your dial frequency, then the R&O seems to 
say you put your dial frequency 1.5 KHz below the channel center 
frequency.  Where you actually transmit your PSK31 signal above that 
doesn't appear to be specified as long as it isn't 2.8 KHz or more, 
which is a little strange.  Given the "one QSO per channel" philosophy 
for CW, Phone, and PACTOR-III, I would think that they would want my 
PSK31 signal centered in the channel and it would be "one PSK31 QSO per 
channel" like the other emissions.  It just doesn't say that explicitly.

There are several references in the R&O to various techniques for 
minimizing interference to Federal users, and that seems to be a driving 
factor behind the "one QSO per channel" requirement.  If it's just me 
and you conversing, there will be natural, frequent breaks for a primary 
user to claim the channel.  If the 60H0J2B emission type is intended to 
allow multiple QSO's within the channel, as happens now above 14070, 
there will be no breaks and no way for a primary user to claim the channel.

I don't have the answer, if someone does I'd really like to hear it, but 
do I think we all need to be careful as 5 March rolls around.

73,

Fred K6DGW
- Northern California Contest Club
- CU in the 2012 Cal QSO Party 6-7 Oct 2012
- www.cqp.org

On 2/3/2012 7:14 PM, Rick Bates wrote:
> Hi Sandy,
>
> If I read it correctly, we can use RTTY, Pactor and PSK modes (using USB
if
> AFSK) and are limited to 2.8 KHz.  It said we were NOT limited to those
> modes for data as it would suppress experimentation.

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