The AM Forum

From the ARRL Letter dated 10/6/16:

"The ARRL and other IARU member societies in the Americas sought comments and suggestions earlier this year from their respective Amateur Radio communities regarding the Region 2 HF Band Plan. At its July meeting, the ARRL Board of Directors adopted recommendations of the ARRL HF Band Planning Committee, for ARRL to present at the conference for possible inclusion in the Region 2 band plan. These include:

* Changing references to the 660-meter band to 630 meters, to more accurately describe the wavelength of the    spectrum actually allocated for Amateur Radio use.

* Updating the 160-meter band plan to acknowledge AM operations commonly encountered within the band.

* Adding an exception to the band plan to specify that, in the event a 60-meter Amateur Radio allocation is added to the band plan, upper sideband (USB) is permissible."

Unfortunately, neither the ARRL Board of Directors Meeting Minutes nor the ARRL HF Band Planning Committee report, details the second item in the above list. Further, I find it strange that a specific phone mode that has been in use since the early days of amateur radio, now has to be "acknowledge" on a specific band. Here's a map showing the three Regions, http://www.iaru.org/regions.html  While band plans are "suggestions" or "recommendations" for specific mode operating, countries that lack our FCC-type authority sometimes roll this information into their amateur operating regulatory rules.