Just before she left for vacation this morning, President Craigie asked me to call Bill Cross. As Chris has said, Bill's observations are not binding on the Commission and he should not be quoted outside ODV. To begin, a review of how we got to where we are today may be helpful. A good place to start is the December 2006 QST editorial (attached). Here I'm going to use the FCC convention of referring to the phone portion of the 3500-4000 kHz band as "75 meters" and the remainder of the band as "80 meters." Also, please don't shoot the messenger. Bill noted that the expansion of the 75 meter phone band and consequent reduction of the 80 meter RTTY/data band (CW being permitted throughout 75 and 80 meters) came about in a proceeding, WT Docket No. 04-140, that addressed (among other issues) the elimination of the 80, 40 and 15 meter "Novice" bands. He said 3600 kHz was chosen as the dividing line between 75 and 80 meters on the basis of comments that argued (1) 75 meters was much more congested than 80 meters, (2) the 25 kHz expansion proposed by the FCC (which corresponded to the ARRL's request in RM-10413) was clearly inadequate to address the congestion, and (3) there were more "narrowband" (500 Hz) channels below 3600 kHz available than "wideband" (3 kHz) channels above 3600 kHz. As for whether a petition would be timely, he said that it wasn't so much a matter of timeliness (although he later commented that subband allocations tend to be reviewed in 10-12 year cycles) as a matter of the Commission being reluctant to take up single-band issues unless there is a compelling reason to do so. He made it pretty clear that based on the comments that reach him, he doesn't see a compelling reason in this case: phone is the most popular operating mode, the expansion has eased congestion and reduced confrontation, and the situation facing CW and RTTY/data operators in 100 kHz on 80 meters is no worse than what they face in 125 kHz on 40 meters, much of which is shared with foreign phone operators. I told him that we were looking for a new 80 meter CW frequency for W1AW to resolve a problem that PSK31 operators have inflicted on themselves by choosing to plop down where W1AW had been operating for many years prior to the invention of PSK31, but that we've been unable to find a suitable frequency that isn't being used by a CW net; he responded that the FCC doesn't address voluntary band planning issues or conflicts that can be resolved by rotating "the big VFO knob," nothing requires CW nets only to operate on 80 meters, and more sunspots should relieve whatever congestion is perceived on the lower frequency bands. I told him that we have even considered moving W1AW CW operations to 3600.0 kHz or just above that frequency although we were reluctant to take what might be seen as a radical step, and he agreed that given the nature of the 75 meter population (which he observed is quite different from 160 meters, where people seem to get along better) such a move might cause a negative reaction. In short, despite the fact that the selection of 3600 kHz was based on comments that (as I pointed out to him) were relatively few in number, a proposal to the FCC change the 75/80 meter subband allocations - whether by moving the dividing line or by sharing between phone and RTTY/data, which is not currently done in any HF band - would bear the burden of proving that (1) there is a compelling problem and (2) the proposed solution has popular support. The Commission is more likely to consider the issue as part of a larger review rather than on a single-band basis. Dave K1ZZ