[Phillip Beall]

All,

The Fannin County ARC sent an email earlier today which referenced a RADIO WORLD articled titled FCC Wants to Bolster Amateur Radio.  I read it and thought it would interest many of you.  The gist of it is the FCC looks to be moving to eliminate baud restrictions and go entirely with bandwidth limits.  This was something ARRL petitioned them to do in 2016!  It is not behind a pay wall so please click the link and go give it a read.

73

Phillip (W5EBC)

[Steven Smith]

Even though some of our ARRL Members are concerned about this
Because they feel WinLink which is mainly the Mode we are talking about
will become an invasive Mode of our other Mode sub bands CW and Phone.

The allowance of everyday use of WinLink if held to modern standards and kept within the sub bands it belongs in will not adversely effect,
the other Modes many of us Love and use.

This Bandwidth rule versus Baud Rate (Speed) rule, will do two positive things…

1. It will allow users of the Mode to embrace High speed uses on a daily basis,
Therefore allowing ECOM members to practice the use of the tools with Higher rates
and therefore become more proficient in it’s use Before and ECOM Event takes place.

2. Wider use of these tools will lower the cost of the Terminal Modems that are priced well out of most amateurs reach
Because the more units sold by the manufactures the cost will decrease and once again more ARES members will start taking part in Exercises with these tools.  We will also see more software designed Modems with use of Higher Baud Rates, making the tools even more efficient.

Operators and Designer’s will still be held to the standard bandwidth rules we all live by today with Upper and Lower Side band signals
(Actually less bandwidth)

The fear still remains with some ops that have never used the Digital WinLink Mode
that their QSO’s will be ruined by these Mailbox tools.
I believe this is an unfounded fear, and I am an Avid CW, Phone and sometimes Digital Mode user
Including WinLink during ECOM Exercises, in other words I am speaking from experience of use of all these Modes.

In 2019 at HamCom, I had breakfast with Rick Roderick K5UR the ARRL president and fellow West Gulf Section Managers as well as our ARRL Division Director John Robert Stratton N5AUS, I pleaded that the ARRL once again ask the FCC for this resolution which the FCC is now heading to a resolution with a 2.8 Bandwidth.

IOW This is a good thing, in my Opinion.

Cheers!
Steve
KG5VK

[Steven Smith]

This new ruling passed

No more antiquated Rule limiting speed of information with Digital Modes
The Only limit is a clean signal less than the width of a 3 KHz Phone signal
2.8KHz is the limit of the digital Modes width for Modes like WinLink etc

This makes the digital Modes more efficient or will now that the software designers are able to within the rules.

 

Cheers!

Steve KG5VK

[Author]

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