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 -----Original Message----- From: W3KD@aol.com [mailto:W3KD@aol.com] Sent: Thursday, August 29, 2002 9:26 AM To: arrl-odv Cc: prinaldo@arrl.org Subject: [ARRL-ODV:7731] Re: ARRL & Bandwidth 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