Dick, I'll give you my quick take on your question/suggestion. First, you've chosen probably the easiest band to defend non-status-quo options -- due to the large amount of real estate on 10. That said, my concern pretty much applies to all the HF bands. You really don't need convincing that band segmentation by mode is becoming more and more irrelevant, difficult to define, etc. do you? You really want to know why the FCC doesn't just conform with the rest of the world's PTTs and specify the band edges and permissible max. bandwidths. I think that would be great -- EXCEPT I think a majority of Yank hams have far too little faith in gentlemen's agreements and aren't near ready to rely solely on such non-government agreements. We can point to the rest of the world and their experiences, and the way even we, now, use 160 M as evidence it WOULD work but these people still will not be comfortable with the thought of casting off that security blanket of FCC-mandated segmentation. In my defense of Reg. by bandwidth with constituents, I often mention that I'd like to see it be an intermediate step to becoming like the rest of the world "sometime" (maybe ~12 years hence??). I haven't had any of maybe fifteen or so return replies pursue me on that particular statement.... maybe we need to do some polling and see if I (we) am overestimating the angst W hams would have with going that route. Maybe those commenters had 'bigger bones to pick' with me...... Convincing the masses is the one fatal flaw I perceive in your idea. It's proving very hard to convince them ANY change is good. Bruce