On 02/03/2005 9:30 PM, Ric Trexell wrote:
[...]
Does any one think that people are going to invest in a
radio and all the learning to do what are nothing more than fancy radio
checks? If that is what the ham bands are going to be used for, then I say
turn them over to business and telephone radio freqs. Ric.

One last comment. The funny thing is that the many licensing bodies
that give access to the amateur bands have specific rules about what
kinds of conversation can take place.

Industry Canada has a requirement that amateur phone conversation (and
I'm paraphrasing now) be of a "basic and trivial non-contentious
nature." I understand that the FCC has similar wording when discussing
the form and content of U.S. amateur phone communication.

So, in reality, amateurs are supposed to fill their conversation with
radio checks and weather reports. Trivial bits of tech gossip and rig
checks are expected and encouraged, according to the test questions I've
answered.

I'm sure that this doesn't limit the actual range of subjects phone
operators (or CW, for that matter) chat about. I'm just pointing out
that the actual rules for using the public airwaves are pretty clear
what you can and cannot say.

That being said, I'm a fan of keeping a good portion of the spectrum
open and non-commercial. The airwaves (and the FCC used to be pretty
strong about this) belong to the people, for use by the people.
Industry has enough of the spectrum. Given they have the R&D resources,
they can also work on squeezing more information into a tighter
bandwidth if they really need more room.

From what I hear on VHF and UHF, industry uses radio the same way
amateurs do: 90% goofing around and rag-chewing and 10% real work. The
other day a city bus driver had to tell a number of "phone ops" drivers
to stop rag-chewing on the job!