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Author Topic: ARRL Seeks Input for New IARU Region 2 Band Plan  (Read 45156 times)
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Pete, WA2CWA
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« on: March 04, 2010, 03:34:46 PM »

From the ARRL web site, dated March 4, 2010:

"The International Amateur Radio Region 2 (IARU R2)conference -- held later this year in El Salvador -- brings together delegations from the national Amateur Radio Societies in the Western Hemisphere. One of the topics on the agenda will be the Region 2 HF band plan. This band plan is "harmonized with" -- spectrum management-speak for "very similar to" -- the IARU Region 1 and Region 3 band plans.

A new, more transparent procedure will be followed this year for considering possible changes to the Region 2 band plan. The ARRL is cooperating with this procedure by inviting input to be sent to the ARRL Board of Directors' Band Planning Committee. The committee will review the existing Region 2 band plan, consider input from the amateur community and make recommendations to the ARRL Board for submission to IARU Region 2.

The inadvertent omission of the AM center of activity frequency (calling frequency) -- 3.885 MHz on 80 meters -- has already been noted, and this will be one of the recommended revisions.

The deadline line set by Region 2 for gathering input and formulating recommendations is rather short. Amateurs who would like to submit input should take the following steps:"


To see the steps, and read the complete text of this post, go here:
http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2010/03/04/11374/?nc=1

Another exciting time is coming!  Cheesy
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« Reply #1 on: March 04, 2010, 04:50:00 PM »

I haven't taken the time to read the article yet, but two things immediately come to mind.  

One, the bandwidth issue.  The Region 1 plan specifically accommodates AM on all phone segments despite the nominal maximum bandwidths posted in the chart. This is conspicuously missing from the current Region 2 plan.

Two, 40m. Although this would take FCC action to correct in the USA, phone/cw segregation should be more closely aligned with that of the other regions.  Specifically, in light of the removal of (most) broadcast stations from 7100-7200, the N. American band plan should allow phone down at least to 7100 kHz. (Most other Region 2 countries are already operating phone well below 7100 anyway).

This would apply immediately to Canada, Mexico and other countries in the Americas, since nearly every country in the world, except for the U.S., long ago phased out government-mandated subbands.

It is ridiculous that 25% of the newly-vacated frequencies are off limits to US phone operators, yet at best there may be no more than a half dozen or so CW/RTTY/data QSO's on 7100-7125 at any given moment, and 7060-7100 is under-used by U.S. non-phone ops as well.
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Pete, WA2CWA
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« Reply #2 on: March 04, 2010, 05:17:43 PM »

Current Region 1 Band Plan:
http://www.iaru-r1.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=175&Itemid=127

Region 3 Band Plan:
http://www.iaru-r2.org/wp-content/uploads/region-3-hf-bandplan.pdf
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Pete, WA2CWA - "A Cluttered Desk is a Sign of Genius"
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« Reply #3 on: March 04, 2010, 08:15:23 PM »

Do not accept their anonymous email address as the only destination for your concerns.

As of July 2009, here are the "members" of the League's Band Planning Committee.

None of the participants has faced any published criteria to have been named to the panel. As such, the basis of their qualifications to serve is not known.

Vice President Rick Roderick - K5UR Chair
Director Tom Frenaye - K1KI
Director Dick Norton - N6AA
Mr. Steve Ford - WB8IMY
Mr. Chuck Skolaut - K0BOG
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Ed/KB1HYS
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« Reply #4 on: March 04, 2010, 09:44:07 PM »

Zombie legislation... it keeps coming back from the dead.

What's wrong with what we've got?   

It's a solution in search of a problem.
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73 de Ed/KB1HYS
Happiness is Hot Tubes, Cold 807's, and warm room filling AM Sound.
 "I've spent three quarters of my life trying to figure out how to do a $50 job for $.50, the rest I spent trying to come up with the $0.50" - D. Gingery
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« Reply #5 on: March 05, 2010, 12:31:56 AM »

I'll read it tomorrow at work, and probably respond to it. If it's like most of the crap going on these days, it's going to favor the digital modes and give short shrift to the traditional modes. Especially AM.

We just got a request to respond to a survey here in TX wanting to know how we felt about them taking away some of the simplex 2 meter freqs to give them to D-STAR. If they keep track of the call sign, email address and phone numbers that they said were optional, but I gave them anyway, I'm probably not welcome at any of the TX VHF Society meetings. I explained that D-STAR completely ignores the amateur history of being totally independent of any infrastructure and instead depends on a very fragile infrastructure -- the Internet -- and pointed out what happened in Silicon Valley CA. Then I pointed out that D-STAR is outrageously over-priced and eliminates most hams from its over-rated system.

We've been dealing with a big push here in TX for D-STAR, and the more they push, the more I push back. I refuse to be ramrodded into some new digital mode that's dependent on the Internet, just because it's stylish. The old ham ways, depending only on ourselves, have worked well for a very long time. Why change them just because some eejit came up with a new digital mode?

</ anti-digital rant>

73,
ldb
K5WLF
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Pete, WA2CWA
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« Reply #6 on: March 05, 2010, 01:22:32 PM »

Do not accept their anonymous email address as the only destination for your concerns.

As of July 2009, here are the "members" of the League's Band Planning Committee.

None of the participants has faced any published criteria to have been named to the panel. As such, the basis of their qualifications to serve is not known.

Vice President Rick Roderick - K5UR Chair
Director Tom Frenaye - K1KI
Director Dick Norton - N6AA
Mr. Steve Ford - WB8IMY
Mr. Chuck Skolaut - K0BOG

Doesn't really make much difference what "qualifications" they have, or don't have. They are the members of the band planning committee and as such will have the ear of the ARRL Board. As stated in the initial post, "Region 2 HF band plan. This band plan is "harmonized with" -- spectrum management-speak for "very similar to" -- the IARU Region 1 and Region 3 band plans", any changes to the IARU Region 2 band plan should include both domestic U. S. AM calling frequencies and any internationally identified AM calling frequencies since there are a number of countries in Region 1 and 3 that don't have access to the same frequency allocations that are available to U. S. amateurs.

Of course, any early-on P&M about "qualifications" only serves to provide fodder later on, if one doesn't embrace or agree with the end result.
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« Reply #7 on: March 05, 2010, 01:23:28 PM »

I looked at the Region 2 BP and they sure mentioned SSB a lot but the only mention of AM pertained to one or two windows or calling frequencies. 
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« Reply #8 on: March 05, 2010, 01:41:38 PM »

I looked at the Region 2 BP and they sure mentioned SSB a lot but the only mention of AM pertained to one or two windows or calling frequencies. 

There are no windows. The current IARU Region 2 band plan lists the 40 meter AM calling frequency as 7275 which doesn't agree with the ARRL's band plan nor to the 40 meter AM operating habits over the past 20 plus years.
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« Reply #9 on: March 05, 2010, 01:53:38 PM »

I looked at the Region 2 BP and they sure mentioned SSB a lot but the only mention of AM pertained to one or two windows or calling frequencies.  

Yes. the attitude in Newington that Phone is only SSB and AM is a specialty mode- and both are obsolete compared to the new holy grail - DIGITAL modes.

Frankly any time I hear that those folks in CT are up to something I start to worry, but before I get to torqued up I'll have to see what happens. 

Although I still stick by my original assertion, that there is no sound reason for to overhaul our band plan just so we can be the same as everyone else <bleh> and this whole digital mode vs voice or what ever is over blown and is just going to become another version of the SSB/AM wars of yesteryear (or yesterday if you're listening to 75meters Smiley )   

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73 de Ed/KB1HYS
Happiness is Hot Tubes, Cold 807's, and warm room filling AM Sound.
 "I've spent three quarters of my life trying to figure out how to do a $50 job for $.50, the rest I spent trying to come up with the $0.50" - D. Gingery
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« Reply #10 on: March 05, 2010, 01:59:49 PM »

Although I still stick by my original assertion, that there is no sound reason for to overhaul our band plan just so we can be the same as everyone else <bleh> and this whole digital mode vs voice or what ever is over blown and is just going to become another version of the SSB/AM wars of yesteryear (or yesterday if you're listening to 75meters Smiley )   


"our band plan"  Huh

Here is the directory of countries that fall under the IARU Region 2 band plan:
http://www.iaru-r2.org/directory/
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« Reply #11 on: March 05, 2010, 07:56:27 PM »

All I can say is remember the BS the last time this "group" convened to better our hobby.
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Mike(y)/W3SLK
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« Reply #12 on: March 06, 2010, 10:42:21 AM »

Although I still stick by my original assertion, that there is no sound reason for to overhaul our band plan just so we can be the same as everyone else <bleh> and this whole digital mode vs voice or what ever is over blown and is just going to become another version of the SSB/AM wars of yesteryear (or yesterday if you're listening to 75meters Smiley )   


"our band plan"  Huh

Here is the directory of countries that fall under the IARU Region 2 band plan:
http://www.iaru-r2.org/directory/

When one is a memeber of a group that jointly owns something, the "our" is correct. (ie: our world).  So in this context all of the nations in Region 2 may clam the band plan as "ours".  Especially since, in theory, every member has a say in the plan through the respective organizations that represent them.

Using "their" in this context would imply that it was foisted upon us by an oustide entity. (ie: the settlers applied "their" laws to the native tribes).   

In retrospect, I think you are correct Pete. It will be Their band plan regardless.
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73 de Ed/KB1HYS
Happiness is Hot Tubes, Cold 807's, and warm room filling AM Sound.
 "I've spent three quarters of my life trying to figure out how to do a $50 job for $.50, the rest I spent trying to come up with the $0.50" - D. Gingery
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« Reply #13 on: March 06, 2010, 11:30:20 AM »

In practice, the people on the ARRL Board do not have the final say as to what is ultimately placed on the table at these IARU band planning festivals.  So yes, perhaps "qualifications" of those who are on the advisory panel are secondary.

If the ARRL staffer representing U.S. licensees at the actual meeting wishes to place his own proposal on the table, it can and has been accepted by the international group as "representative" of what U.S. licensees want.

Concentrating that much power in one individual is a hole in the system of "representation" by a member society in the IARU.

ARRL CEO Dave Sumner will confirm to anyone this is exactly what former League staffer Paul Rinaldo did at the previous Region 2 conference in Brazil.  Hint: Ask about the unrelated document Rinaldo pulled out of his pocket with suggested bandwidth specifications. Sumner sent me a copy of it.

No one has been able to provide documentation of the agenda and parameters of the previous "ad hoc" ARRL Band Planning Committee. Maybe that's the circumstance they're trying to fix with references to being "more transparent," eh ?

For example, there is no record to suggest Rinaldo had the authorization to propose enumerated bandwidth specifications, an act that contradicted the wishes of U.S. licensees.

It's nice that League people this time are soliciting input, and it's encouraging that they may be more public about exactly what will be taken to the table in El Salvador.

But let's see if they can actually avoid the kind of shenanigans Rinaldo caused the last time -- and the anti-AM result of those actions that League people now apparently wish to repair.

Doesn't really make much difference what "qualifications" they have, or don't have. They are the members of the band planning committee and as such will have the ear of the ARRL Board.
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wd8das
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« Reply #14 on: March 06, 2010, 02:20:58 PM »

Here's my feedback on the present Region 2 bandplan.
I submitted it to  bandplan2010@arrl.org  as was requested...

- - - - - - - - - - -
ARRL -

Feedback on IARU Region 2 bandplan

The actual need for bandplans has not been established, but if we
accept that one is desired, a bandplan should recommend *modes* for
segments, not signal bandwidths.  Most hams know what mode they are
running, but few really know the bandwidths involved.

Very few hams have the knowledge, skills, or test equipment to measure
occupied bandwidth anyway, so its use in a bandplan is a meaningless
standard.  The common practice of tuning a communications receiver
across a signal is NOT how to measure occupied bandwidth and
will produce misleading results.

The present Region 2 bandplan's bandwidth limitation to 2700 Hz in most
phone and image segments is especially inappropriate.  It unnecessarily
excludes some modes, particularly the DSB AM mode which is growing in
popularity.  I am VERY much against such limits - tight regulation and
restrictions like these goes completely against the experimental and
innovative aspects of ham radio.

I feel we need no such plans restricting operation by bandwidth.
Bandplans like this have a history of increasing the stress among
amateurs with arguments and finger-pointing.  I think it is vital to
avoid tight restriction and limitation which could hinder our future
options.  We should err on the side of flexibility and less
restrictions, rather than more and tighter controls that eliminate
future choices.  If we are to remain viable as an organized hobby we've
got to be open to a wide variety of modes, both old and new.

Steve Johnston, WD8DAS

- - - - - - - - - - -


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wd8das
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« Reply #15 on: March 06, 2010, 02:23:56 PM »

Remember in 2007- 2008 when the ARRL backed down from
their attempt to get FCC regulation by bandwidth?
 
At that time we heard a League official state
that "we needn't expect a further effort by the ARRL to get
bandwidth controls into FCC rules for at least two years - not
until the League had a chance to "educate" the members
and other amateurs on the matter and "get them on-board".
 
Now in early 2010 that amount of time has passed and the
IARU plan is under review - interesting.
 
Steve WD8DAS
 
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WA3VJB
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« Reply #16 on: March 06, 2010, 02:54:42 PM »

You're right Steve, the people at the ARRL retreated from their effort at the FCC when confronted with overwhelming opposition filed against their proposed scheme for segregation-by-bandwidth.  

And you're also correct in observing they never quite accepted the popular sentiment rejecting their scheme. Instead they portrayed the opposition as uninformed or confused, and that the League's scheme had been misinterpreted.

Certain League people also coughed up a dose of accusatory hyperbole thrown against active, concerned licensees who had dared to push back.

Rinaldo is gone now.  This invitation to comment may prove more sincere than the one preceding the ARRL Board's decision to file their threatened segregation-by-bandwidth proposal at the FCC, where the club ultimately got the hard spanking they deserved for ignoring what their subscribers had told them, at their own request.

Let's hope they listen this time.

Remember in 2007- 2008 when the ARRL backed down from
their attempt to get FCC regulation by bandwidth?
 
At that time we heard a League official state
that "we needn't expect a further effort by the ARRL to get
bandwidth controls into FCC rules for at least two years - not
until the League had a chance to "educate" the members
and other amateurs on the matter and "get them on-board".
 
Now in early 2010 that amount of time has passed and the
IARU plan is under review - interesting.
 
Steve WD8DAS
 

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ka3zlr
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« Reply #17 on: March 06, 2010, 02:57:32 PM »

Howdy,  Smiley

 I've always looked at it like The way Power is looked on...

 What is and isn't necessary to make, break or continue a Gud Quality QSO..


2700hz, it's like......Squeeze it in there boy.....LOL..we're not concerned with what is comfortable to both operators in a contact....if room is or isn't at a premium, there's the dependency.

 Oh well... just more back slapping, Job well done on the Bandwidth Issue, an get more No Net Nets going to squeeze more operators into non-existence.

73
Jack.

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Pete, WA2CWA
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« Reply #18 on: March 06, 2010, 05:46:23 PM »

I see no point in dredging up past activities that are over and done with other then perceived personal "feel-good" stroking.  All three IARU Regions have band plans that include recommended maximum bandwidth notations. Some countries don't have an equivalent "FCC" and thus use the IARU band plans as their official guide. We are fortunate to have the FCC shape our amateur radio do's and don'ts with Part 97. Remember, at the IARU meetings, the U. S., represented by the ARRL, only has one vote. Even if the U. S. backs away from any band plan changes with a "no" vote, a majority of "yes" votes will make the change.
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« Reply #19 on: March 06, 2010, 06:43:16 PM »

I see no point in dredging up past activities that are over and done with other then perceived personal "feel-good" stroking.  All three IARU Regions have band plans that include recommended maximum bandwidth notations. Some countries don't have an equivalent "FCC" and thus use the IARU band plans as their official guide. We are fortunate to have the FCC shape our amateur radio do's and don'ts with Part 97. Remember, at the IARU meetings, the U. S., represented by the ARRL, only has one vote. Even if the U. S. backs away from any band plan changes with a "no" vote, a majority of "yes" votes will make the change.

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Who_said_Those_who_ignore_history_are_bound_to_repeat_it
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« Reply #20 on: March 06, 2010, 09:06:44 PM »

Dave, you beat me to the punch on that one! However I like it as stated "Those who ignore history are CONDEMNED to repeat it!"
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Mike(y)/W3SLK
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« Reply #21 on: March 07, 2010, 03:53:10 PM »


I see no point in dredging up past activities that are over and done with other then perceived personal "feel-good" stroking.
 

Review of past sneakiness is important so that new people know what has been done before and become vigilant.   The more people in ARRL-Watch mode the better.   For example, multiple ARRL Unofficial Observers can search the FCC ECFS on a regular basis, looking for hidden documents detailing quiet FCC-ARRL activities that might be detrimental to AM activity.
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« Reply #22 on: March 07, 2010, 05:55:29 PM »

Review of past sneakiness is important so that new people know what has been done before and become vigilant.   The more people in ARRL-Watch mode the better.   For example, multiple ARRL Unofficial Observers can search the FCC ECFS on a regular basis, looking for hidden documents detailing quiet FCC-ARRL activities that might be detrimental to AM activity.

I would suggest you broaden your search criteria beyond ARRL. Over the years there have been a number of proposals submitted to the FCC by individuals or groups that would have been considered detrimental to AM and/or amateur radio activities. I also seriously doubt the ARRL is on the inside tract with the FCC these days. Please keep us informed of your findings of any black-robed gangster activities that might be detrimental to AM activity.
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Pete, WA2CWA - "A Cluttered Desk is a Sign of Genius"
ka3zlr
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« Reply #23 on: March 07, 2010, 06:08:49 PM »

Yea,... an their little Dog too... Grin

Pete, Black Robed Gangstas......I thought we were the only Gangstas...LOL


73 Pete.

Jack.

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wd8das
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« Reply #24 on: March 07, 2010, 07:39:16 PM »

In addition to sending my comments on the Region 2 bandplan to the feedback email address provided, I also wrote directly to League officials.  This afternoon I received a reply from the President, Kay N3KN.
 
- - - - - - - -
Thank you for your comments. The Region 2 band plan accommodates DSB AM operation. For example, if you look at the segment 7100 - 7130, you will see a asterisk by the 2700 bandwidth. Then scroll to the bottom of the entire chart to find the reference for that asterisk, which says, "DSB AM allowed in this segment with a maximum bandwidth of 6 kHz." The omission of the AM calling frequency on 80 meters was accidental and will be remedied in
the revision.
 
The Region 2 band plan is not part of the FCC's Rules and has no regulatory effect upon us in the USA. The current version does not and the revised version will not have any adverse effect upon your enjoyment of the Amateur bands using the modes you and your friends prefer.
 
Kay N3KN
- - - - - - - -
 
I replied...
 
- - - - - - - -
 
Kay -
 
Thank you for your reply. Your response doesn't really address my concerns, as I'm not calling for some sort of special "exception" for certain modes. Sounds like you've prepared well for complaints from the AM community, but I question the whole business of segregation by bandwidth.
 
How many hams do you know that can measure occupied bandwidth in their shack? Can you?
 
Or do you rely upon the type of mode (CW, computer, voice, etc) to decide where best to operate? I'm betting that you, like 99% of hams, are not measuring their bandwidth but instead making assumptions based on modes-compatibility.
 
Steve WD8DAS
 
sbjohnston@aol.com
http://www.wd8das.net/
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