Are we in danger of being the last generation of hams? (And if we
are, what can we do to eliminate that danger?)

First, a disclaimer. I'm into my fifth decade of being a licensed
amateur, and figure I'm good for 3 or 4 more sunspot cycles of fun. I
love amateur radio.

But I worry sometimes.

Our service will only continue to exist so long as the majority of the
worlds national governments believe that we bring value to the public
in exchange for the incredibly valuable RF spectrum that is entrusted
to our use.

I think if the members of ITU collectively asked "Are the hams of the
world doing anything which justifies their generous chunks assigned
spectrum?" the honest answer would be "Probably not."

What are we going to do about that?

73, de Hans, K0HB

wrote in news:1177105498.800186.298520
@y80g2000hsf.googlegroups.com:

Our service will only continue to exist so long as the majority of the
worlds national governments believe that we bring value to the public
in exchange for the incredibly valuable RF spectrum that is entrusted
to our use.



That might have been true before 2000, but isn't true today. Some
spectrum would be lost to services who are interested in VHF/UHF and
above. But, noone wants HF any more, as is self evident by the lack of
traffic across HF outside the ham bands. Even the broadcasters, like BBC
of all entities, have reduced transmissions drastically across HF and
migrated to internet servers. Check out http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio. You
can listen to ALL the BBC radio stations from that webpage, live! The
internet is really cheap to broadcast to...much cheaper than that monster
out in the country with the big Sterba curtains. VOA is dead...RAI is
dead...Radio Switzerland is dead. (http://www.eviva.ch/ if you like
Swiss accordian music...(c Even local Swiss stations, like Radio
Berner Oberland (http://www.beo.ch) in Interlaken, Bernese Oberland on
beautiful Lake of Thun broadcasts 24/7 to the world.

What amuses me is ARRL and the other lobbies haven't just been inundating
ITU for the unused parts of HF. They can alwasy steal them back for WW3,
if it lasts over 5 days...which I doubt.

Larry W4CSC
--
..

On Apr 21, 2:45 am, Larry wrote:
wrote in news:1177105498.800186.298520
@y80g2000hsf.googlegroups.com:

Our service will only continue to exist so long as the majority of the
worlds national governments believe that we bring value to the public
in exchange for the incredibly valuable RF spectrum that is entrusted
to our use.

That might have been true before 2000, but isn't true today. Some
spectrum would be lost to services who are interested in VHF/UHF and
above. But, noone wants HF any more, as is self evident by the lack of
traffic across HF outside the ham bands.

MF/HF is only a minor fraction of our allocations. Maybe it's not
vulnerable, or maybe it is, but compared to the massive amount of VHF/
UHF spectrum we could lose, I consider HF an insignificant issue.

So I pose my question again..... "What are we going to do about
that?"

73, de Hans, K0HB

On Apr 21, 11:09�am, wrote:
On Apr 21, 2:45 am, Larry wrote:

wrote in news:1177105498.800186.298520
@y80g2000hsf.googlegroups.com:

Our service will only continue to exist so long as the majority of the
worlds national governments believe that we bring value to the public
in exchange for the incredibly valuable RF spectrum that is entrusted
to our use.

That might have been true before 2000, but isn't true today. *Some
spectrum would be lost to services who are interested in VHF/UHF and
above. *But, noone wants HF any more, as is self evident by the lack of
traffic across HF outside the ham bands.

MF/HF is only a minor fraction of our allocations. *

In terms of how many kHz we have, yes. Except for 6 meters has more
kHz than all of the 9 MF/HF bands plus the channels at 60 meters. Same
for almost every amateur allocation above 30 MHz.

But for some reason those HF/MF bands are considered extremely
desirable by radio amateurs.


Maybe it's not
vulnerable, or maybe it is, but compared to the massive amount of VHF/
UHF spectrum we could lose, I consider HF an insignificant issue.

Which would you rather lose - 1 MHz of the 1296 MHz band, or all of
160, 40, 20, 30 and 17 meter bands? Same amount of bandwidth...

So I pose my question again..... *"What are we going to do about
that?"

The first thing is to simply *use* that spectrum. The very best
argument for reassignment of spectrum is that the folks who have it
aren't using it. or aren't using much of it. That argument was one
reason we lost 220-222 MHz: the folks who wanted it were able to
convince FCC that we hams could fit all of our 220-222 activities into
222-225.

But you can't force amateurs to operate on certain bands. They can be
encouraged, but not forced. So the question becomes "what will make
the VHF/UHF amateur bands more attractive to hams?"

Perhaps a new generation of near-geosynchronous amateur satellites
would attract more activity. Or the deployment of a highspeed linked
repeater network. But those things require sizable infrastructure
investments by amateurs.

---

Perhaps, when we speak of those VHF/UHF bands, we're seeing history
repeat itself.

In 1912, amateurs were legislated to "200 Meters And Down", meaning
they were legislated off what were then considered to be the most-
useful wavelengths. After the 1912 laws went into effect, amateurs
could get station licenses for any of the 'shortwaves' simply for the
asking.

But once those amateurs showed how useful those 'shortwaves' were,
others followed, and by 1924 or so amateurs were confined to certain
bands. No longer could amateurs simply pick a wave and get a license
to use it.

Then in 1927 came the "1929 rules", which significantly narrowed some
of the existing bands. 40 meters had been 7000 - 8000 kHz before the
1929 rules, but once they went into effect, the band was 7000 - 7300.
20 meters went from 14000 - 16000 to 14000 - 14400. There were other
changes such as requiring stable and clean signals.

Some said that those 1929 rules would strangle amateur radio, and
would soon kill it off due to overcrowding and the expense/complexity
of a "1929 transmitter". But exactly the opposite happened, because in
the years after the 1929 rules, the number of US hams almost tripled
and the technology used took great leaps forward.

We hams got our enormous VHF/UHF allocations after WW2, when much of
it was considered relatively useless, or at least not as useful as the
lower frequencies. That's all changed in the past couple of decades.

Perhaps it's 1929 all over again in some ways.

73 de Jim, N2EY

On Apr 22, 11:52 am, wrote:
On Apr 21, 11:09?am, wrote:


But you can't force amateurs to operate on certain bands. They can be
encouraged, but not forced. So the question becomes "what will make
the VHF/UHF amateur bands more attractive to hams?"

Perhaps a new generation of near-geosynchronous amateur satellites
would attract more activity. Or the deployment of a highspeed linked
repeater network. But those things require sizable infrastructure
investments by amateurs.

it would require not money but a Govt foot in the rear to gain Acess
to those orbital spots there is already something of a traffic jam

OTOH one thing that might help is for old hams to learn more about
about how we can in fact in Do such things as EME I ended up giving
going abit about Modern EME and Ms work at our local hamfest ( I may
end up riding a circut giving tlaks on the subject in the UP but that
is another thread

wrote on Sun, 22 Apr 2007 11:52:02 EDT:

On Apr 21, 11:09?am, wrote:
On Apr 21, 2:45 am, Larry wrote:
wrote in news:1177105498.800186.298520

Our service will only continue to exist so long as the majority of the
worlds national governments believe that we bring value to the public
in exchange for the incredibly valuable RF spectrum that is entrusted
to our use.

That might have been true before 2000, but isn't true today. ?Some
spectrum would be lost to services who are interested in VHF/UHF and
above. ?But, noone wants HF any more, as is self evident by the lack of
traffic across HF outside the ham bands.


Maybe it's not
vulnerable, or maybe it is, but compared to the massive amount of VHF/
UHF spectrum we could lose, I consider HF an insignificant issue.

Which would you rather lose - 1 MHz of the 1296 MHz band, or all of
160, 40, 20, 30 and 17 meter bands? Same amount of bandwidth...

Are radio amateurs going to "lose" EM spectrum space? I didn't
know this was so dictated. If amateurs want to keep something in
radio, they have to continually fight for it; just because they
got some allocations once doesn't mean it is forever.

In the last half century, amateur radio worldwide has GAINED
allocations, not lost. Begin with WARC-79 decisions...


So I pose my question again..... ?"What are we going to do about
that?"

The first thing is to simply *use* that spectrum. The very best
argument for reassignment of spectrum is that the folks who have it
aren't using it. or aren't using much of it.

How does "*use*" of line-of-sight get publicized nationally?

The NTIS has a specific EM Survey mobile unit which has been
used to take readings of certain areas of the United States
over an extremely wide range of frequencies. Those surveys are
available to the public and each one is extensive, technically
explicit.

Other than "popular activities" described in amateur radio
interest periodicals, the use of line-of-sight frequencies is
mentioned only in regards to an already-allocated radio
service in trade journals.

That argument was one
reason we lost 220-222 MHz: the folks who wanted it were able to
convince FCC that we hams could fit all of our 220-222 activities into
222-225.

"220" wasn't the only amateur band in dispute in the last half
century in the USA. The politics of the various disputes can't
be simplistically interpreted. As I recall, not a user of "220"
at the time, the ARRL did not argue effectively enough for its
retention to convince the FCC.

But you can't force amateurs to operate on certain bands. They can be
encouraged, but not forced.

Yes, they can be forced. See "200 Meters and down."

So the question becomes "what will make
the VHF/UHF amateur bands more attractive to hams?"

I wasn't aware that the ham bands above 30 MHz were not
attractive. Radio equipment manufacturers are continually
supplying radios and advertising VHF-and-up radios, have
been for years. There's obviously a market for them as
witness the continued advertising campaign waged with
high monetary values.

Since the inception of the no-code-test Technician class
license 16 years ago, the vast majority of newcomers in the
USA have entered amateur radio in the "world above 30 MHz."
The Technician class has become - easily - the most numerous
of all US amateur radio classes. No-code-test Technicians
were banned from privileges below 30 MHz in the USA. "Techs"
continue being newcomers despite cessation of morse code
testing in the USA for amateurs.

The migration to VHF and above in amateur radio is not
confined to the USA. JARL and Japanese electronics industry
have developed D-Star specifically for digital modes on
VHF and above. AOR in Japan has one digital voice adapter
for voice-bandwidth radios and another one from Germany has
been described in the April QST issue this year. While US
HF-only hams may shun digital anything on "their" bands, such
is readily useable on VHF and above with no basic changes.


Perhaps a new generation of near-geosynchronous amateur satellites
would attract more activity.

Perhaps it would be prudent to take a good look around
at the activity at VHF and above that is going on today?

Or the deployment of a highspeed linked
repeater network. But those things require sizable infrastructure
investments by amateurs.

Is that a necessity? In 1977 I was shown the start of what
would grow into the present-day Condor Net on the "220" band,
operating in three states (CA, NV, AZ) and capable of being
tone-coded-linking from one repeater to any other repeater.
That was without using conventional digital logic or the
ubiquitous microprocessor. Sizeable investment by amateurs?
Yes, but also willingly done. Well done, I might add.

The latest ARRL Repeater Directory shows an enormity of
repeaters ("sizeable infrastructure investments"), most of
them public-access, installed and operated by radio amateurs.
Repeaters have been put into place all over the USA in the
last three decades plus. Even without repeaters, the use
of VHF-UHF and even low microwaves by radio amateurs has
become sizeable in urban areas of the USA.

---

We hams got our enormous VHF/UHF allocations after WW2, when much of
it was considered relatively useless, or at least not as useful as the
lower frequencies. That's all changed in the past couple of decades.

Not being a licensed radio amateur right after WWII, I was
unaware that "VHF/UHF" was "useless." Edwin Armstrong
pioneered FM broadcasting there in the 1930s. Public safety
radio started the use it in the last 1930s, finding it very
useful compared to the old HF radios a few agencies had.
The US military was already using low VHF in the 1930s and
would continue that with the famed "walkie-talkie" of WWII.
The fledgling TV broadcast industry and their equipment
makers had already standardized on low-VHF frequencies in the
1930s (via the "first" NTSC). The US military switched to
low-VHF FM radios for vehicular operation en masse at the
beginning of WWII...even the USN had its "TBS." Radar, a
savior of tacticians in WWII, had to operate on UHF and
microwaves, was predictably quite successful in that RF
region. Still is.

All of the preceding paragraph took place 7 decades ago,
not a "couple" of them.

Perhaps it's 1929 all over again in some ways.

Perhaps too many of the HF persuasion are affected with
ennui over their self-imposed limitations of radio use.
I still see an unlimited vista of hope and adventure in
the future. The state of the art of radio-electronics is
constantly advancing. By the looks of things, it isn't
about to stop anytime soon. Change keeps happening.

Those who refuse to change, want their endless youthful
discoveries to continue, want to close off amateur
activities to what was long ago, will all mourn and wail
over "losses." The rest of the world will continue
without them, changing things to fit the new people, not
the old ones. Those who want something will have to go
out and WORK for it, DO something about it, not sit
around and grouse about things not being the same. The
new people will have earned theirs and the future will
be different. I say good for them!

73, Len AF6AY


PS: No "artifacts" were exploited or utilized on this
text file upload.

On Apr 22, 3:52 pm, wrote:


Which would you rather lose - 1 MHz of the 1296 MHz band, or all of
160, 40, 20, 30 and 17 meter bands? Same amount of bandwidth...


That's misdirection, Jim, and ignores the question "What are we going
to do about that?"


In 1912, amateurs were legislated to "200 Meters And Down", meaning
they were legislated off what were then considered to be the most-
useful wavelengths.


So maybe the answer is that the FCC should craft a new challenge of
similar magnitude to stimulate the Amateur Radio service to a new
golden age, similar to that which followed the 200-meters-and-down
challenge.

How about this, for a two step approach?

1) Institute a new "top" license class with a "technical quotient"
about 3 times as challenging as the current Extra class license, and
keep the question pool secret. Holders of this license could
experiment on any amateur frequency (with the usual "no deliberate
interference" caveat) with any modulation scheme or information
encoding scheme without special authorization or STA.

2) Starting 10 years from the effective date of the R&O, require that
the following band segments can only be used with modulation types and
information coding schemes which were invented in the previous 15
years. All of 160M. 3550-3600KHz. 3900-4000KHz. 7050-7150KHz.
7250-7300KHz. 14050-14100KHz. 14300-14350KHz. 21050-21100KHZ.
21400-21450KHz. All of 10M. 146-148MHz. 222-225MHz. All bands
above 432MHz.

On Apr 22, 11:02�pm, wrote:
On Apr 22, 3:52 pm, wrote:

Which would you rather lose - 1 MHz of the 1296 MHz band, or all of
160, 40, 20, 30 and 17 meter bands? Same amount of bandwidth...

That's misdirection, Jim, and ignores the question "What are we going
to do about that?"

It's not misdirection, Hans. It's a plain and simple question, meant
to focus on the fact that not all kHz are created equal.

In 1912, amateurs were legislated to "200 Meters And Down", meaning
they were legislated off what were then considered to be the most-
useful wavelengths.

So maybe the answer is that the FCC should craft a new challenge of
similar magnitude to stimulate the Amateur Radio service to a new
golden age, similar to that which followed the 200-meters-and-down
challenge.

Perhaps.

How about this, for a two step approach?

1) Institute a new "top" license class with a "technical quotient"
about 3 times as challenging as the current Extra class license, and
keep the question pool secret.

I like it! The only problem is, how would the question pool be kept
secret? How could FCC be convinced, after a quarter-century of
published Q&A pools and the VE system, that this new license class
needed a different exam system than all the rest?

*Holders of this license could
experiment on any amateur frequency (with the usual "no deliberate
interference" caveat) with any modulation scheme or information
encoding scheme without special authorization or STA.

The problem I see with that is, who defines 'experiment' or
'deliberate interference'?

I could see the license being used as a way around mode-subband
restrictions, rather than real experimentation.

2) Starting 10 years from the effective date of the R&O, require that
the following band segments can only be used with modulation types and
information coding schemes which were invented in the previous 15
years. *All of 160M. *3550-3600KHz. *3900-4000KHz. *7050-7150KHz.
7250-7300KHz. *14050-14100KHz. *14300-14350KHz. *21050-21100KHZ.
21400-21450KHz. *All of 10M. *146-148MHz. *222-225MHz. *All bands
above 432MHz.

Which means that 160, 10, 220 and all above 432 would no longer be
available for the use of SSB, DSB, AM, FM, RTTY, AMTOR, PACTOR, SSTV,
TV, PSK31, and CW. Plus considerable segments of the rest of the
amateur bands would lose those modes as well. Not by voluntarily
abandonment of old modes but by law.

I don't think that's a good idea. Just because something isn't brand
new doesn't mean it should be legislated off the air.

73 de Jim, N2EY

wrote:

How about this, for a two step approach? [to the issue of losing spectrum]

1) Institute a new "top" license class with a "technical quotient"
about 3 times as challenging as the current Extra class license, and
keep the question pool secret. Holders of this license could
experiment on any amateur frequency (with the usual "no deliberate
interference" caveat) with any modulation scheme or information
encoding scheme without special authorization or STA.

How many people do you think would obtain this license? I don't see a
latent demand out there for authorization to experiment with modes that
require special authorization. I'm afraid that the actual result would
be only a tiny number of upgrades, which would serve as evidence that
the amateur radio service didn't need the spectrum it has now.

2) Starting 10 years from the effective date of the R&O, require that
the following band segments can only be used with modulation types and
information coding schemes which were invented in the previous 15
years. All of 160M. 3550-3600KHz. 3900-4000KHz. 7050-7150KHz.
7250-7300KHz. 14050-14100KHz. 14300-14350KHz. 21050-21100KHZ.
21400-21450KHz. All of 10M. 146-148MHz. 222-225MHz. All bands
above 432MHz.

I understand your reasoning here -- you're trying to encourage use of
new technology via regulation. Again, I'm afraid that it would have the
opposite effect in terms of maintaining spectrum allocations -- the FCC
would point to the lack of usage and use that as justification to
reallocate the spectrum.

Both of these ideas attempt to change behavior of the existing
populatiion of amateur radio operators. I think it's more important to
focus on ideas that expand the population of licensed operators by
attracting new people.

Your focus tends to be showing the regulators that hams are technical
innovators, thus they deserve frequency allocations. My focus tends to
be increasing the overall population of the users to increase the usage
of our allocations, thus justifying them. Both of these techniques work
and can be used at the same time.

I really think that the key is communications, or call it public
relations or marketing if you wish. It has always struck me as ironic
that hams, in a hobby that is basically communications, are generally
horrible communicators. We need to motivate existing hams to actually
participate in the hobby, and we need to get the message out to
potential new licensees that ham radio is an attractive leisure-time
activity for them. Easy for me to say . . . but I've not personally
been very successful at actually *doing* anything.

wrote:
On Apr 22, 3:52 pm, wrote:

Which would you rather lose - 1 MHz of the 1296 MHz band, or all of
160, 40, 20, 30 and 17 meter bands? Same amount of bandwidth...


That's misdirection, Jim, and ignores the question "What are we going
to do about that?"

In 1912, amateurs were legislated to "200 Meters And Down", meaning
they were legislated off what were then considered to be the most-
useful wavelengths.


So maybe the answer is that the FCC should craft a new challenge of
similar magnitude to stimulate the Amateur Radio service to a new
golden age, similar to that which followed the 200-meters-and-down
challenge.

The golden age of Ham radio is the time at which the individual Ham got
started. I digress, though.

I don't think that restrictions or challenges are the way to go. The
1912 Hams were not put there as a challenge to get them to innovate.
They were put there because the frequencies were not thought to be worth
much to anyone.



How about this, for a two step approach?

1) Institute a new "top" license class with a "technical quotient"
about 3 times as challenging as the current Extra class license, and
keep the question pool secret. Holders of this license could
experiment on any amateur frequency (with the usual "no deliberate
interference" caveat) with any modulation scheme or information
encoding scheme without special authorization or STA.

2) Starting 10 years from the effective date of the R&O, require that
the following band segments can only be used with modulation types and
information coding schemes which were invented in the previous 15
years. All of 160M.

160 meters has a whole lot of baggage just to set up a station. Lot's
of real estate comes to mind, as well as other antenna issues.

3550-3600KHz. 3900-4000KHz. 7050-7150KHz.
7250-7300KHz. 14050-14100KHz. 14300-14350KHz. 21050-21100KHZ.
21400-21450KHz. All of 10M. 146-148MHz. 222-225MHz. All bands
above 432MHz.

Way too complex, IMO. And what happens to those 15 y.o. "new"
technologies on Year 15 plus one day? The modulation scheme has to find
a new place among all the other old school stuff. And tne need for
gentlemen's band plans increase (the newer/lesser used modes really like
to congregate, since there is a big difference between tuning a band to
find ssb or cw signals and trying to find one little PSK signal over a
whole band.

One real challenge would be to confine all Ham radio activity to one
band! ;^)

Modes are an interesting conundrum. Most Hams want someone to talk,
type, or tap to. So the coolest modulation scheme or digital voice mode
isn't going to be of much use unless you have someone on the other end
doing the same thing.

And to answer your question, we aren't going to be the last generation
of Hams, IMO.

- 73 de Mike KB3EIA -