The AM Forum

FCC issues wide-ranging restructuring of the Amateur Service.

see the doc below, but one headline --

Based on the record before us, we believe that authorizing additional spectrum for voice communications is warranted.  We agree with the majority of commenters that such an authorization will address a current need for more spectrum to accommodate phone communications, and that benefits will accrue and efficiencies will be gained by this action

---

Contributing to the FCC's decision:
DALE GAGNON, DAVE HUMBERTSON, JOHN FITZSIMMONS
and
DON CHESTER
are noted by name in the footnotes !!
Congratulations guys.

Pretty sweet... up to an extra 150 kHz for phone on 75 meters, if you are an Extra.

75 Meter Phone Allocations


             General      Advanced      Extra

Current      3850-4000   3775-4000   3750-4000

New          3800-4000   3700-4000   3600-4000

Increase         50           75        150



40 Meter Phone Allocations

              General      Advanced       Extra

Current      7225-7300    7150-7300    7150-7300

New          7175-7300    7125-7300    7125-7300

Increase        50            25           25

The FCC talking, so "we" all know who the "We" is in the text:
We are persuaded, however, by ARRL’s contention that increasing the amount of spectrum for voice communications will reduce interference among stations using voice communications, thereby benefiting all licensees, and that authorizing more spectrum for voice communications will more closely reflect licensees' operating preferences, thereby resulting in more efficient use of amateur service spectrum.

Cool! Let's start a NET!!!  :D

About a net...

Yeah, like it took Newington to bring that obscure fact to light.....  ::) Thankfully, the FCC didn't take thair advice on the amount of increase.


Bill was listed also:

Bill Kleronomos Comments at 1;

Good show, OMs!

Adopted:  October 4, 2006            
Released:  October 10, 2006
By the Commission


I just read it over. Vely, vely interesting.

I liked the way the FCC referred to various people who expressed comments -  they were listening.

The dates listed above -  Am I interpreting this correctly? Does the "adopted" Oct 4, 2006 mean Extras can go down to 3600 on phone NOW?  Or, is there an "effective" date coming in the future? I tuned and heard only VE stations down there as of 4PM today.

This 75M thing is really a monumental rule change that we all have hoped for for many years now.  

Also, I wonder where the Euro 40M band now cuts off. I heard some countries can go higher these days. With the added USA 25kc segment, the dream of working them on the same freq may be closer.

T

Thanks for catching that Todd, yes, we have a lot to be proud of for having contributed to the FCC's decsion making.  The FCC again has recognized persons who participate in the regulatory process.

Also adding as showing up in the footnoots:

Paul Goodman

Mike Wingfield

me

Yes Phil, the 30-Day proviso is noted in the document.
SO, we have to watch for publication and start the clock then.

hmmmm...........

Doesn't that sound nice???

AM window from 3600-3700kc?

Would be all well and good, but what about all those digital stations working that segment?

I guess I'll find, and read the text.............

Much better than anything I had anticipated, but we are still left with that cumbersome matrix of subbands based on operator class combined with emission mode.

Considering the relief in congestion we have already experienced due to the general decline in amateur activity in recent years, there should be plenty of room for all on 75m, without the griping about AM "taking up too much room on the crowded band."  Of course, if the FCC eventually eliminates the code requirement, expect an initial spike in activity as hoards of no-code Techs upgrade, but after the initial spike I predict a return to stagnant growth.  There should still be plenty of room for AM activity.

Once the expansion goes into effect, we should immediately commence AM activity on the new frequencies, including the 3600-3700 kc/s Extra segment. 

I have just briefly skimmed the R & O, so I am not sure if it means that 3600-3700 is restricted to Extra class for all modes, or just that Extras can now use phone in the segment.  How this will affect non-voice licence class restrictions is not entirely clear:

If Generals and above can still use 3600-3700 for non-voice modes, expect digital modes to continue to operate in this segment.  I suspect that may be the reason such a big hunk was set aside for Extras - to limit phone activity in that region of the band so that some of the digital stuff can continue on those frequencies.

Although the thinking of government agencies is extremely unpredictable, this doesn't look well for the ARRL's bandwidth proposal.  If the FCC were seriously considering limitations by bandwidth any time soon, it is unlikely they would have gone to all the trouble to work out this plan, only to have to revise it in the near future to accomodate subbands-by-bandwidth.

Looks like we'll soon be able to join the Canadians in their "AM Window" on 3720.

We need to achieve a consensus on an alternate AM Window and stake out turf on the new band ASAP. I'd hate to see everyone still crammed on around 3885 five years from now.

Being a traditionalist, and there's several folks using crapstals, how about 1885 x 2 or 3770 KC? Almost any 75M dipole antenna should accomodate both 3770 and 3885 without retuning. Perhaps 7290/2 or 3645 KHz?

And we could work those guys on 160 with too much second harmonic output! Cross band anyone?

The only problem I see with 3770 is that it's a little close to the DX Window. Yea, I know the lower edge is 25 kHz up the band, but often DX spills over, all the way down to 80 or so. Just a thought.

For sure, let's pick a freq and use it.

Plus, show a presence somewhere on 3600-3700.  The watered-down Extra today is less than comparable to the Advanced in the mid 70's, when the "window" was in Advanced territory.  I recall very well when Generals couldn't work 75m AM because the General class segment (electronic ghetto) was way too congested, and 3885 was off-limits.

When this expansion goes into effect, there will be no excuse not to s-p-r-e-a-d  o-u-t.

IMHO...there should be an AM window in the old novice band, say, 3725?

Yes, 3770 might be a little high. From experience working DX on the east coast, when the band is hot, OR there is a DX corntest, they work all the way down to 3775 and sometimes lower. AM activity would be a little close, considering all the new room we will have.

Moving into the new area sounds cool.  There are no staked-out U.S. nets, groups or other SSB activity yet. Think about it.

I do like the idea of 3725.  That will let the Advanced Class guys join in (3700 is their lower limit) and give us a nice round freq number. Did someone say there was also AM activity there from VE's and/or Eu?

If we eventually spread out + - 15kc like the 3885 area habits, that would be 3710- 3740. I also like the idea of being in the old novice band! 

Just my 2 cents, but, whatever comes about is OK with me.

T

Yup, Tom, we're all a bunch of JNs at heart, aren't we?

Wow 3725 was my novice frequency. wonder if the rock still shakes

Yeah I predict a lot of antenna re-cuttings getting ready.
I'm already down at 3825Kc.

The Canadian AM window is 3720 - 3745, with 3725 the "calling frequency".  There is a daily net on there  starting at about 5 PM or so, with most activity at about 8 PM.

Wooh-hoo!  Guess the time I took to file my comments were well worth the effort.

Miy Novice rock was on 3721.5  Think that would be close enough?

I'm also wondering what our Canadian friends will be thinking about the American Invasion of their territory.

How 'bout it, Ed?

vH

Thanks for the info, Ed.

Well, in light of this, maybe a better choice would be 3715 for US stations.  In this case the complete 3700 - 3750 area could be considered a US/Canadian AM popular area of sorts, since the Canadians have already spearheaded and made the ssb world aware of their presence there. Might as well build on it.  In addition, Extra Class AM guys could drop down below 3700 if need be.

We must remember that a +- 6kc wide AM Advanced Class station cannot go below 3706 without being out of the band.

I can see this extra 100kc phone enhancement as a great reason to upgrade to Extra.

T

...OUR AM  GROUP HERE IN VE-LAND HAS BEEN ON 3725 FOR YEARS..LISTEN MORNINGS ABOUT 8:30,AFTERNOONS ABT 4:30-5PM,AND AT NIGHT,AROUND 8PM....THING IS,WE CAN USE 1KW AM...TIM....SK...

Current  Canadian usage of 3720 - 3755:

3715: occasional Quebec stations SSB
3725: +/- AM phone  Calling/QSO's
3730 Ottawa SSB gang  most nights.
3733 - 3735: Ontario SSB stations   most nights
3737.5:  Ontario gang, ex-"Sanderson Hour Net".  Most nights.
3740:  Quebec stations.  most nights.
3745 - 3750: assorted SSB QSO's
3755: ONTARS Net 5 - 7:30 PM nightly.
3755: Ontario Swap Shop net Sundays nights 7 PM - 9 PM. (Very good net, BTW)

...AS WELL ED,THERE ARE GUYS ON LSB AT 3680,AND RECENTLY 3617...AND OUR EAST COAST AM GUYS ON 3730,3735....TIM....SK...

1) You will know.

2) You could always tell them.

3) Operate on CW and prove it.

4) Like me, realize that nobody really cares I passed 20 wpm 34 years ago and forget about it... ;D

T

20 WPM was the hardest part so it still feels good I got there.

I finally took my Extra test in 2000 just a month before they dumbed down the code requirement.  But I have kept my CSCE (certificate signed by three examiners that I passed the 20 wpm code test).  I have it in a frame!  Also one of the callbook-like web sites (wm7d.net) includes your last class of license.  Mine says ADVANCED.  It's also on the FCC ULS Ham call site (you can find that through Buckmaster).

Or like JJ says, just realize that nobody really gives a rat's Tuchis  ;D

vH

;D ;D ;D
As we get older Herb, I suppose our real worry will be, "will anyone even remember us 34 years from now?"  :o

T

Thanks, Tim. My shorty antenna is so bad, I can't always hear the East Coast guys.   I'm amazed that there are LSB stations at 3680 and 3617!    Prolly trying to work the Europeans.

Ed want to try a sked somewhere? 
Supposed to be clear and cold acr much of the continent this weekend.

That's some funny stuff.  I like when he says "watch and learn", keys up and sings Johnny Cash. When no one responds, he asks for a radio check.. HA!

T

I hear the train a'coming'.....


Look at the rigs in this one!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_41bynwlsU&mode=related&search=

or this one

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBzlsCGadU4&mode=related&search=

As I was driving home, "competitively" as I call it (never aggressively), looking to make headway, I saw the vacant HOV-2 lane and it dawned on me --

Make the expanded phone band segments CONTEST FREE ZONES  !!!


That would drain a lot oif poison off those particular weekends, eh ?

Paul, you are twisted, completely sick.  Ralph Spoilsport.

I love it.

They sound like the Derb when he does his BJB thang.  Amazing the way the cameras get overloaded and the distorted audio bleeds in.  Man O' man.

T

Ok, pardon me for being from the cultural backwater that is California... WTF am I looking at here?  I looked at  the "davemade" guy's website once, he had a suburban with like 6 alternators to power his "leenyer," but WTF is this, some sorta contest??? how does it work? I'm just trying to fathom the redneck mentality! Arent all those dudes who stand in between the 'burbans sterilized from all the RF? not that thats a bad thing, considering.... So, its like drag racing, but with CB's? Dude...

Hey!

How about some of us Yanks join the VEs on 3725 some evening? The day it's legal to get on  there.

See how it works out and discuss a US AM window in the expanded band.

Might be fun.

Ed! Be there!

It's called a Shootout. Two vehicles sit side by side and take turns transmitting. Another vehicle sits some distance away and receives and notes which of the two transmitting stations is the strongest.

Not that I mind contests..........
It's just the seemingly large number of inconsiderate PR***S who are bent on proving they can fill the yellow bucket quicker and from further away..........
And just like lots of nets.....they of course have more right to a frequency, because they are doing something important ::)

(disclaimer... obviously I'm not dumping on ALL nets, or ALL contesters.... just the "weakest-links")

They want to simplify the ham bands.  To have a subband that is open to different license classes for different modes just doesn't add up.   They've never done that before, I don't see that being their intent now.   Besides, that wouldn't be consistent with the stated objective of more space for phone.

I imagine this will be clarified during the 30 day wait.

We could try, Paul, but my  current antenna is no good.  It's only a 15' remnant of my old End-Fed Zepp, only 15' off the ground.    It's piss poor.  I've got my new ant hanging off the tower, waiting to be deployed.  133 foot dipole, fed with balanced line. Just waiting  to find the time to drop the ends, and the bal. line and hook everything up. I expect to have it operational within 2 weeks.  The center point is at  50 feet; it should strap.

  As their nads shrank and eyeballs cooked like egg yolks.......... :o

Tom,

They sure remember '2OY 39 years after he's gone.   I still hear people bitchin' about him on and off of the ham bands.  Mike would be proud!  ;D

vH

No rigs in mine but I like my Folsum Prison version better cause its got 'Wah Wah'
Next week I am gonna learn the second verse which isn't the same as the first!

http://home.comcast.net/~w1qwt/music.html

I am looking forward to the wide open spaces. Should be law by XMAS
Wonder what they will do with CW?

Q from the band 'Roadsteamers' aka W1QWT

ARRL seeking guidance for a revised band plan based on the restructuring going into effect probably next month.

See post in ARRL Forum Section:
http://amfone.net/Amforum/index.php?topic=8726.0

I'm now reading about new AM windows and revised band plans.  That makes me shudder.  We have presently what some call the "ghetto" between 3880 and 3890 (some think it extends down to 3870, but there's plenty of slop bucket down there -- in the East, at least).  And of course, there's the high end of 40 (where the Southwest no-traffic net operates), and 14286 where we have to fight for one frequency. 

 Everybody's been jumping up and down about extending phone into the so-called cw bands, and some even hope that eventually we'll be like the rest of the world, with no restriction by mode, and can operate phone throughout the bands.

So, why the hell are some people talking about new band plans and AM windows?  It's just a re-duplication of what we have now, which everybody complains about.  When there is a so-called window, the slop buckets tell us to go back where we belong if we happen to wander out of it.  $h*t!  I belong anywhere my license says I belong.  Isn't that what we've been working for--to extend our operating space?

I have no intention of proposing a new band plan to ARRL or anybody else.  I will operate wherever I can legally, and hope others will too.  All this segregation is a great part of our present problems.  It's like the USA prior to the Civil RIghts Act of 1964.  Let's not create a new "back of the bus" for second-class citizens (i.e., AMers) to ride in.  That mentality went out in the mid 60s.  There will be plenty of room for all now, and things will just fall into place naturally without official segregation by mode.  We do not need some official or unofficial body telling us where we can operate after we've just been given more space within which to do it!  Ride up in the front of the bus, and ride up there proudly!  It's your right.

vH

So is the front of the bus on 3885 or 3725 kHz?

Quote from Steve - WB3HUZ:
__________________________________________
|"So is the front of the bus on 3885 or 3725 kHz? "|

Guess I mis-spoke, Steve.  I thought my point would be understood.  I probably should have said "Ride in the front of the bus, the middle of the bus, the left side of the bus, the right side of the bus, or the back of the bus if you like.  Also stand or sit, depending on how you feel.  In other words, ride wherever you like.  It's your right.

OK?
vH

Hi Herb,
Ok now that your point has been "made".--as far as riding anywhere on the bus
that one wants,--sounds great, in theory, BUT that would be ok if that lower,or
back of the bus were empty,--but as I recall the back of the bus has been inhabited
for years now by Canadians,(SSB,ers and a few am`ers) used to having all that room back there,-- now what remains to be seen,-- is will they relish the fact that we might be
grabbing "thier seats"?
                                           73, Rene, K1MVP

If nobody is sitting in the seat, it's up for grabs. Probably sitting under the bus is not a good idea.

Screw the bus. They are stinky and slow. I'll ride in my limo.

Yep,
I just had a "flashback" of bus`es I used to see while stationed in Panama headed
for the local beach`es on any given weekend.
These bus`es were loaded to the "limits" with the" locals", sitting, standing and hanging
out of the windows, and barely "chugging" along about ready to blow the engine.
What a site to behold.
                                          73, K1MVP
 

Some Canadian AM'ers are now suggesting that if 3725 gets too congested with Americans, they'll just move down to 3525 or so.   I'm suggesting that we make a  new wide window from 3675 to 3750, for AM calling.   It  will all depend on how this new US bandplan evolves.

Move down to 3525,--ohh, that WILL be interesting,--right smack in the middle where
most serious CW ops work,--"fix" one problem, and create 3 more.
I can just see qrp cw or medium power cw, now becoming QRO cw with this scenario
taking place.
                                    73, K1MVP :)

Some how the "back of the bus" is really going to get crowded

There should be plenty of room for all between 3600 and 3700.  The present US Extra class band is 3750-3775 and except during slopbucket contests, it is  rarely congested even on weekend nights when the QRN is gone and condx are good.  When this segment is moved and expanded to 100 kc/s total width, there will be plenty of open space available.  This segment may become even more "underutilised" than it already is, unless we see a spike of ugrades to Extra. The Canadian AM group can move there, without fear of US AM'ers crowding them off the frequency, if indeed that's what they are afraid of. 

Moving below 3600 into the cw portion of the band will generate hostility towards AM throughout N. America, and likely generate a renewed effort to get rid of AM in both  countries.

Although this phone band expansion will be a great improvement over what we have at present, I still would have preferred total elimination of subbands on all bands, for both mode and licence class, as now exists on 160m and on the rest of the bands throughout the world except in USA.

There's already been a spike in the upgrades to Extra.  Hell, they just about give them away in cereal boxes now.  Guys who've been NCTs a month now upgrade to Extra then go on qrz.com to ask how to make a dipole.  (I guess I shouldn't badmouth that one though.  Most hams BUY their dipoles.)

Don, I don't think you mean it to be a contradiction, but first you acknowledge correctly the down side of AM, or slopbucket for that matter, going below 3600.  Then you say you wish segregation by mode had been eliminated.

CW will get through.  That's one of CW's strong points.  Narrow bandwidth and an appropriate filter will do the job.  I worry though about the war that would start.  If segregation by mode were eliminated I see the slopbucketeers, especially those escapees from 75, attempting to colonise the CW band right to the bottom.  Fortunately nearly all of the AM crowd are older fellows who would hopefully know what a mess would be created.  And as you said, AMers moving down that far into the low end would indeed throw fuel on the "get rid of AM" fire.  Phone ops on either side of our northern border will simply be bad for ham radio in general.

I have said before that as an approrpriate trade I'd support disallowing CW in the "phone" band.  CW belongs up there no more than phone belongs in the CW end.  That it works on 160 is no surprise.  The investment mostly in space for a decent antenna as well as the skill needed to get out of one's own back yard  keeps 160 in the hands of the better and more experienced hams.  I don't see the civility of 160 being duplicated on 80 only because 80 (more 75) has been shown already to be inhabited largely by morons.  A listen to 3885 when the slopbucketeers are feeling their oates is proof enough of that.

I went back and looked up the names of people I thought I recognized in the footnotes, and it turns out we have about a dozen AMers contributing to the FCC's decison to expand the phone bands, as cited in the agengy's footnotes in the Report and Order. The common interest makes us the most distinctive group of individuals to file official Comments.

For those who don't usually take part in the FCC's proceedings, I hope this helps convince you that if you have something worthwhile to say, it can actually make a difference in a rulemaking outcome.

Thanks for playing a role, gentlemen.

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