Bill Pasternak is apparently out fanning the flames. He ran this "story" today. Expect more flame-o-grams from members and non-members alike. REGULATION BY BANDWIDTH: CQ EDITORIAL SAYS "HERE WE GO AGAIN" CQ Magazine is again tackling the controversial subject of Regulation by Bandwidth. This time in an in-depth editorial in its just out December issue. An editorial that points out that the soon to be in place IARU Region 2 bandplan is really nothing more than the ARRL's abortive attempt at reaching the objective of Regulation by Bandwidth, but hidden under a fresh coat of paint. And according to editor Rich Moseson, W2VU, its not the idea of regulating by signal bandwidth that's worrisome. Rather it's the way that the ham radio political leaders are going about it through what amounts to a back door: -- Moseson: "I want to make it clear from the start that I have no objection to the concept of regulation by bandwidth. We think the concept is good. Its something that's needed. The problem comes up in execution." "When you are turning a concept into a workable plan, in this case you have to make sure that it is flexible not only to permit the development of new modes, which may yet be off over the horizon, but to continue to accommodate the modes that are currently legal and currently being used by some number of people." "Our biggest gripe is just the fact that this was not put out for public discussion. That it was done quietly at an IARU meeting and not put out for the members of the various societies that are part of Region 2 to discuss." -- According to W2VU, in early 2007, realizing that the tide of opinion in the U-S ham community was not yet ready to change to a bandwidth regulated service, the ARRL quietly met with FCC officials. At that time it submitted revisions that essentially gutted the original proposal. Then a couple of months later the League withdrew the petition altogether. At the time, the ARRL said it still felt that a shift to regulation by bandwidth was necessary and that it would revisit the issue in the future. And Moseson says that it not only appears to be revisiting the issue right now but that it appears to be continuing the pattern started earlier this year of doing so very quietly and with very little explanation.: -- Moseson: "The agenda of the meeting was not publicized beforehand. The specific proposal was not publicized beforehand. The only thing that was publicized was what was adopted and the encouragement to lobby your national regulatory agency to adopt the provisions of this bandplan as law" -- As previously reported, in mid-October, Region II of the IARU announced that it had adopted a new High Frequency band bandplan that it termed as a way to better organize the use of the bands more efficiently. The new band plan takes effect January 1, 2008, and guess what? It's broken down by bandwidths! Not only that, but it appears to do nearly everything that opponents of the original ARRL plan feared including limiting wide bandwidth legacy modes like AM to a pair of 25 kHz wide shared segments in the 75-meter band and to frequencies above 29 MHz. But that's not all. The plan also calls for the creation of segments for automatically controlled 2 point 7 kHz wide digital stations on all of the High Frequency bands except 160 and 30 meters. In several cases, these so called "robot" station segments are right at the bottom of the U.S. phone bands, where the best DX is often found. While the new bandplan is voluntary, as W2VU points out, its authors do urge hams all across Region 2 to lobby their respective governments to make it law. And the United States does take up a lot of real estate in Region 2. The entire editorial and the implications to Region 2 appears in the December issue of C-Q Magazine. Its title seems rather apropos. Rich Moseson calls it -- "Here we Go Again." (CQ, ARNewsline) ** Andy Oppel andy@andyoppel.com andy_oppel@alamedanet.net