I was reading though the recent freebie copy of World Radio News today, and
someone had written in asking how "we could rid the HF bands of AM" !!!
They didn't publish the call of who asked the question. The issue is at
my
office now, so I can't provide the page number, but it's in one of the "ask
your question" sections.
In WorldRadio (the west coast ham radio rag published on newsprint), John B.
Johnston, W3BE, retired chief of the Rulemaking Division of the Private
Radio Bureau of the FCC that used to be in charge of ham radio rulemaking
matters, publishes a monthly column on RULES & REGS. The column is
basically Q-A format, with Johnston sometimes inserting his own comments as
a "W3BE-O-GRAM."
Many readers of this forum will recall that Mr. Johnston seemed to pursue a
consistently anti-AM policy throughout the 20+ years he was involved with
FCC rulemaking. He first gained notoriety within the AM community when he
advocated eliminating AM, in the guise of "deregulation," under the
mid-1970's bandwidth proposal in Docket 20777 (not unlike the proposal that
ARRL is currently discussing). Later, he was a strong defender of the 1990
AM power reduction, and typcially replied to objections from the amateur
community by putting a spin on his response in such a manner to totally
evade whatever issue was brought up.
In the June 2005 column most of the Q-A's are about Field Day and who can
and cannot operate a given licensee's station, but here's the one Mark was
referring to:
Q: How can we rid our HF bands of AM?
A. That would require an amendment to Section 97.3(c)(5), at least.
W3BE-O-GRAM: That would be much harder done than said.
Don K4KYV
