[Lowfer] 2200 Meter request for NPRM-Whedbee Reply

Thu Jan 14 21:00:05 EST 2010

Mr Whedbee:

I will publicly apologize to you for my " Lime Light " Lawyer
comment. After I googled your name, and numerous pages came up,
Glancing through many of them, the term " Esquire " was noted
with your name a few times, and I assumed you are a lawyer.
I hope you will forgive my pre-mature assumptions.

73 :::

Andy - KU4XR - EM75xr - Friendsville, TN.
LOWfer Beacon " XR " @ 185.29866 KHz ( QRSS-60 )
Coordinates:  N:  35* 43' 54" - W:  84* 3' 16"
http://www.myspace.com/beaconxr
http://webpages.charter.net/ku4xr/

--- On Thu, 1/14/10, James Whedbee <jamesewhedbee at yahoo.com> wrote:

> From: James Whedbee <jamesewhedbee at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: [Lowfer] 2200 Meter request for NPRM-Whedbee Reply
> To: lowfer at mailman.qth.net
> Date: Thursday, January 14, 2010, 8:30 PM
> Friends:
> 
> I've been following your thread for some time and recently
> received a kind e-mail from somebody friendly enough just to
> ask.  What follows is the essence of my e-mail to
> him.  This said, I am not a looking to be published in
> any magazines, a limelight lawyer (or any other lawyer for
> that matter), snake oil salesman (just to name a few of the
> characterizations referring to me), etc., so I was a bit
> surprised by folks who don't know me or understand my
> experiment mischaracterizing my work.  We are, after
> all, on the same side!
> 
> That being the case, I served in the Army signal corps
> during the first Gulf War as a node
> manager, and wound up getting hurt; fortunately, I am an
> academic, so I
> can still work following my retirement from the
> service.  My NPRM is the result of my own
> observations of operators like yourself who are on the air
> in the LF
> spectrum but not interfering at all with power company
> equipment.  The
> EIRP limit of one watt is firm because international law
> (ITU Agenda
> item 1.15, among others binds FCC) would prohibit FCC from
> establishing a higher power level. 
> The 100 Watt transmitter power limit takes into
> consideration the power
> companies' objections during RM-9404, and also the ITU's
> observation
> that amateur transmitters with low power levels would not
> interfere. 
> This overcomes FCC's previous reason for rejecting
> RM-9404.  The
> narrowband emissions are merely an acceptance of reality
> that on so
> narrow a range of frequencies, these are the emissions
> we'll be
> permitted to use.  Because this is a Part 97 (Amateur
> Radio) petition, none of the current NPRM has any known
> implications to Part 5 operations...your transmitters are
> all safe from this NPRM.
> 
> As a ham, I've been licensed since 1981(then KA0MLG, and
> now as N0ECN).  Your friends' observations
> that I am not well-known by others is correct; I am
> generally only
> active during severe weather while I am working (and I work
> in academia, as a commissioner to Missouri from New
> Hampshire, and others).  That said, to my wife's
> chagrin, I quite
> literally do have a number of transceivers ranging in
> frequency from "DC to daylight,"
> including one of my personal favorites, an antique 10-10.5
> GHz
> Tellurometer that still does a good job.  
> 
> My home is itself on a
> postage-stamp lot, but I have quite a few (much larger)
> parcels of land
> throughout the US which allow for large antennas my HOA
> won't permit; I
> am building a LPTV station (KZJW-LD) on one of those
> lots.  Because I
> still have a mortgage payment, I teach, so I am
> experimenting under
> WE2XTU mainly during the winter break periods and summer
> months (first
> week of June through August).  If I do experiments
> during other times,
> it's always on the weekend.  Since I'm working on
> antennas I hope to
> later patent, I'm really not trying to draw attention to
> my
> experiments; therefore, I don't make any attempt to make
> contacts.  Similarly, as you've noted, I have a very
> wide range of frequencies under WE2XTU, so the odds of
> inadvertently running across me on the air are still remote
> as I seldom use the same frequencies more than two or three
> times.
> 
> While
> I have no way to get in their head to know why they've
> shown me favor in granting so much spectrum,
> I suspect my success with FCC has a lot more to do with the
> fact that
> they know I am an academic-they have all my credentials on
> record. 
> Since this experimentation is in connection with my
> teaching, they seem
> quite a bit more generous than I suspect others have
> experienced. 
> However, if you look at other experimental applications
> covering large
> swaths of spectrum you'll notice that the FCC is more prone
> to give you
> greater leeway if your experiments are geared toward
> antenna design
> because some antennas require a wide bandwidth.  
> 
> What I can say about
> my own experimentation (that won't reveal anything I'd
> later patent) is
> this: the reason ham radio operators (or anyone else) cuts
> a dipole for
> 95% of the free-space half-wavelength dimension is the
> dielectric
> constant of air (in a vacuum, the 95% would be 100%). 
> Of the non-gain
> antennas, dipoles are the most efficient of all antennas
> (94% if well
> constructed) so of all antenna designs, they get more
> transmitter power
> out than any other.  Well, it isn't necessary to put a
> dipole in air at
> all.  The dielectric can be polystyrene, glass, or any
> number of
> others.  This change in the dielectric constant can
> result in a vastly
> shorter dipole antenna with the same high efficiency
> rating.  Of course
> dipoles are pretty big at 2200 meters, so they're not the
> only antenna
> interesting me with these experiments. 
> 
> 
> 73's,
> 
> James Whedbee
> N0ECN, WE2XTU
> 
> 
> 
>       
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