As
I now understand it, the task the Board has given staff and Chris is to
draft a petition for rulemaking that converts the existing rules regarding
emission types and standards into rules based on bandwidth, without imposing any
new limitations on existing amateur operations (since the Prime Directive is,
"No reduction in anyone's privileges"). That's a big job and as Jay has said it
is fraught with potential unintended consequences. It can be done. It just
can't (and shouldn't) be done quickly. Neither would it be responsible for us
then to file the petition without first bringing it back to the Board and
explaining the implications, which are considerable. I pointed out one
implication in [ARRL-ODV:7663]: data modes would be newly permitted in the
subbands that are presently limited to phone/image/CW (since CW is
permitted everywhere).
I believe the temporal imperative arises from
Pactor III. If Pactor III is "documented publicly" as per 97.309(a)(4) it can be
used legally in the RTTY/data subbands as long as the symbol rate does not
exceed 300 bauds. (One could argue, and I have done so in the past, that the
intent of the 1-kHz FSK limit in 97.309(a)(4) is to limit the bandwidth to
something on the order of 1 kHz, but I really think it's too much of a stretch
to try and apply this decades-old standard, which dates back to 850-Hz-shift
RTTY, to current digital practices.) Pactor III cannot be used
under automatic control because 97.221(c)(2) limits the bandwidth to 500
Hz.
Anything else requires either a rules change, a waiver,
or an experimental license. And as Chris has pointed out, a rules change isn't
going to happen quickly enough to make the Pactor III folks happy, no matter
what.
Dave
K1ZZ
In a message dated 8/29/2002 8:56:53 AM
Eastern Standard Time, jbellows@skypoint.com writes:
Rather than risk an unfortunate
encounter with the Law of Unintended Consequences we may prefer to wait
until January to clarify what we intended to request and how to do that as
narrowly as possible. The other option is to proceed, in which case the only
Board wide guidance that Chris and Paul have is the language of the motion
rather than our individual opinions of what was
intended
It would seem that Jay has hit on an important
point here; there are numerous areas where interpretation of Board intent may
be required. The first is as Jay has stated. Another is the issue of timing,
and what will constitute the next reasonable opportunity to submit the
proposal.
Cross is feverishly (I say that totally tongue-in-cheek; he
is taking forever with a simple NPRM) working on the "omnibus" Part 97
rulemaking incorporating numerous rulemaking petitions as we discussed at the
Board meeting. This NPRM will likely be released in November, he says, or at
least it will be in October when the Bureau sends it to the Commissioners. It
is not likely that another major matter such as this will be included at this
point, but perhaps it is not impossible.
In any case, as we have
essentially committed to batch-filing rulemaking matters, and we have "shot
our shot" for this upcoming one, the next reasonable opportunity to do the
Part 97 bandwidth rulemaking could well be two years hence. This is likely to
be unsatisfactory to the HF data network folks, but would suit the AMers just
fine, no doubt.
Paul Rinaldo and I are scheduled to meet tomorrow for
a coordination session, and he has done yeoman draftsmanship on a rough
(really rough, he says) appendix on this subject in what little free time he
has had lately. We are not on a fast track on this matter (because Paul has
other critical priorities, as you are aware, and we have some domestic
spectrum protection issues on the near horizon (Trahos and the new 222-225 MHz
skirmish being two). So, unless you all feel otherwise, this rulemaking will
probably slip to the next batch, perhaps two years (or even more) hence. I am
aware that this is unsatisfactory to Director Bodson, who suggests that we
should try to get this into the anticipated NPRM this fall.
How shall
we proceed in terms of time?
73, Chris W3KD