Title: FCC seeks comments to Eliminate 15 dB Gain limit Post by: W3RSW on April 28, 2016, 02:54:09 PM QST de W1AW
ARRL Bulletin 15 ARLB015 From ARRL Headquarters Newington CT April 28, 2016 To all radio amateurs SB QST ARL ARLB015 ARLB015 FCC Invites Comments on Petition to Eliminate 15 dB Gain Limit on Amateur Amplifiers The FCC has put on public notice and invited comments on a Petition for Rule Making (RM-11767), filed on behalf of an amateur amplifier distributor, which seeks to revise the Amateur Service rules regarding maximum permissible amplifier gain. Expert Linears America LLC of Magnolia, Texas, which distributes linears manufactured by SPE in Italy, wants the FCC to eliminate the 15 dB gain limitation on amateur amplifiers, spelled out in Part 97.317(a)(2). Expert asserts that there should be no gain limitation at all on amplifiers sold or used in the Amateur Service. RM-11767 can be found on the web at, http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/comment/view?id=60001536394 . "There is no technical or regulatory reason [that] an amplifier capable of being driven to full legal output by even a fraction of a watt should not be available to Amateur Radio operators in the United States," Expert said in its Petition. Expert maintains that the 15 dB gain limitation is an unneeded holdover from the days when amplifiers were less efficient and the FCC was attempting to rein in the use of Amateur Service amplifiers by Citizens Band operators. While the FCC proposed in its 2004 Notice of Proposed Rulemaking and Order in WT Docket 04-140 to delete the requirement that amplifiers be designed to use a minimum of 50 W of drive power and subsequently did so, it did not further discuss the 15 dB amplification limit in the subsequent Report and Order in the docket. The R&O is in PDF format at, https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-06-149A1.pdf . "Although no party advocated retention of the 15 dB limit, it remains in place today," Expert pointed out in its filing. "In the intervening years, advancements in Amateur Radio transmitter technology have led to the availability of highly compact, sophisticated low-power transmitters that require more than 15 dB of amplification to achieve maximum legal power output. Therefore, Expert seeks to remove the 15 dB limit from Part 97.317 so that Amateur Radio manufacturers and distributors will not be forced to needlessly cripple their amplifiers for sale in the United States." Expert pointed to its Model 1.3K FA amplifier as an example of a linear "inherently capable of considerably more than 15 dB of amplification," which would make it a suitable match for low-power transceivers now on the market having output power on the order of 10 W. NNNN Title: Re: FCC seeks comments to Eliminate 15 dB Gain limit Post by: W1ITT on April 28, 2016, 04:01:51 PM The petition seems reasonable. Years ago there was a problem in the Citizens' Band world, so the Commission decided to "solve" it by punishing the Amateur Service. A look at Ebay, for instance, will show that there are many trashy amplifiers out there advertised as "ham" but obviously aimed at the CB crowd.
In the Amateur Service there is no a use for higher gain amplifiers to use with some of the new SDR radios like HPSDR's Hermes and Anan series, Woodbox, and some of the many others that put out anything from half a watt to ten watts. The Hermes and Anan crowd would appreciate a built-in coupler to feed back a sample for PureSignal computations. If the FCC field agents want to check out some of the truck stops and CB shops, assuming they still have the budget for that, they probably won't scoop up any more violators than they do now. The technology exists for reasonably priced solid state amplifiers that will take 500 milliwatts or a watt and put out a clean 1.5 KW. There's no good reason to continue the gain limitation as long as spectrum purity is maintained. Title: Re: FCC seeks comments to Eliminate 15 dB Gain limit Post by: kb2vxa on April 29, 2016, 10:49:14 AM I'm 100% behind eliminating the 15dB limit for previously stated reasons plus one more, for all practical purposes CB is dead.
"If the FCC field agents want to check out some of the truck stops and CB shops..." If the FCC field agents want to CONTINUE TO check out some of the truck stops and CB shops... There, that's more like it. The FCC busted more of them than you can shake the proverbial stick at, confiscating illegal amps and radios capable of operating out of band with a simple modification and levying heavy fines effectively shutting them down. In fact they published a list of these radios. Back in the 1960s several big name CB manufactures openly advertised and sold matching 100W amps to go along with those radios, imagine that. http://radioheaven.homestead.com/Courier1M.html I had the Courier 1M, an excellent triple conversion tunable receiver with razor sharp selectivity, but not the amp and there were others including the popular BL100 base and the ML100 mobile amp. Title: Re: FCC seeks comments to Eliminate 15 dB Gain limit Post by: Pete, WA2CWA on April 29, 2016, 01:39:50 PM I'm 100% behind eliminating the 15dB limit for previously stated reasons plus one more, for all practical purposes CB is dead. "If the FCC field agents want to check out some of the truck stops and CB shops..." If the FCC field agents want to CONTINUE TO check out some of the truck stops and CB shops... There, that's more like it. The FCC busted more of them than you can shake the proverbial stick at, confiscating illegal amps and radios capable of operating out of band with a simple modification and levying heavy fines effectively shutting them down. In fact they published a list of these radios. Back in the 1960s several big name CB manufactures openly advertised and sold matching 100W amps to go along with those radios, imagine that. http://radioheaven.homestead.com/Courier1M.html I had the Courier 1M, an excellent triple conversion tunable receiver with razor sharp selectivity, but not the amp and there were others including the popular BL100 base and the ML100 mobile amp. Some may perceive that "CB is dead" but the sale of amplifiers isn't: http://www.davemade.mobi/Mobile-Amplifiers-Click-Here-Button_c3.htm Easy to pick out the questionable amplifiers here: http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2050601.m570.l1313.TR6.TRC2.A0.H0.Xlinear+amplifiers.TRS0&_nkw=linear+amplifiers&_sacat=0 As we start into the summer "E" season, you''ll probably find CB signals all the way up into the lower portion of the 10 m band. Title: Re: FCC seeks comments to Eliminate 15 dB Gain limit Post by: Opcom on April 29, 2016, 11:10:07 PM I'd prefer the regulation of amplifier gain be removed. It was an incompetent idea from the first day. There is nothing that will stop CBers from using amplifiers except enforcement directly upon those who break the law. The FCC took the easy/cheap/lazy way out long ago and the CB folks laugh and hook a 100W amp in series with a 1500W amp.
Title: Re: FCC seeks comments to Eliminate 15 dB Gain limit Post by: KD6VXI on April 30, 2016, 12:07:03 PM You can purchase radios with 4 x 2879s in them.
Makes this a moot point. Even though it's just an importer wanting type acceptance. --Shane KD6VXI Title: Re: FCC seeks comments to Eliminate 15 dB Gain limit Post by: N5RLR on May 01, 2016, 02:44:41 AM ...for all practical purposes CB is dead... The proliferation of CB-related pages on Facebook would seem to belie this assumption. Especially the ones promoting illegal operation, implicitly or explicitly. I'm also for the 15-dB regulation to be scrapped. |