Reaction to ARRL bandwith proposal mounts - the digital side

Last week we began reporting reaction from the ham radio community to an ARRL idea to re-regulate the United States Amateur Radio service by the amount of bandwidth a stations signal would use rather than where in the allotted spectrum he operates.

We have already heard what the proponents of enhanced analog S-S-B had to say. This week we turn to another controversial area of the proposal. That of permitting semi-
automatic digital messaging stations to operate just about anyplace that they want. Amateur Radio Newsline's Bruce Tennant, K6PZW, looks at the complaints:

Under the League's proposal, semi-automatic robot stations would be permitted to operate in most of the high frequency phone bands. Fully automatic or unattended stations would be one of the few operations to be confined to specific subbands.

These ideas are being opposed - sometimes loudly - by both sides. Analog phone proponents say that even under partial human control a digital mail system holds the potential for causing irreperable harm to voice communications and other analog modes. In on the air discussions, and on weblogs such as Q-R-Zed dot com, proponents of analog voice present both opinion and technical evidence to show that interference would be harmful and intolerable. They also note that not every QSO is for messaging purposes. That many if not most are purely for the pleasure of talking with the other station and enjoying one anothers company over the airwaves.

On the other side are the more vocal of the digital communications proponents and especially those who favor automated digital messaging. They say that the very concept that makes electronic messaging such a viable means of communications is total unattended automation. They say that this is especially true when handeling heavy loads of traffic in an emergency situation.

Some do acknowledge the interference potential but say that this will be only hold true during the transitional years from shared analog and digital operations until analog disappears in favor of an all digital service. They also note that any interference to analog voice would be brief. This is because their transmissions are brief and their belief that digital messaging allows a tremendous amount of information to be moved with extreme accuracy in a fraction of the time it takes an analog operator to pass along a similar amount of content.

From whats being said it appears that the digital folks want the FCC to approve only fully automated robot stations without any subband restrictions. They also want it made clear to analog operators that the time has come to begin sharing bandspace with the emerging world of digital.
A world that a growing number believe will replace morse, RTTY and other analog based modes as the dominant way for hams to communicate text and other data, and, eventually even the human voice.

From what's being said on the air and printed in cyberspace, there does seem to be one point both sides seem to agree on. That being a strong belief that analog and digital cannot co-exist in the same spectrum. At least not easily, and neither side appears willing to concede.

Source: ARNewsline

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