----- Original Message ----- Subject: Re: [AMRadio] Web page appears in opposition to RM-11306
> On 17 Jan 2006 at 13:38, Anthony W. DePrato wrote: > > > Listen any night 7.000 usb and you will hear many south american stations chatting away. > > seems line they use ham radio for schools telephones and drug running. <SNIP> > Maybe we just don't need any bands or rules at all! Or maybe you are hearing drug runners and freebanders. Not all freebanders operate between 26-30 MHz (yes, I've heard plenty of them in the CW portion of 10 m). I have even heard pirate broadcasters in our CW subband of 40 meters, including one in the Miami area who was busted by the FCC about 15 years ago. I have also heard German and Russian fishing boats on SSB in our CW subband of 80 meters and they were not using callsigns or other identifiers. My point is that these guys are probably not even licensed hams. Does anyone think that smugglers and drug runners are going to get an amateur radio license from their home countries? To the Chicken Littles of the amateur radio community: The sky isn't going to fall and the amateur bands will not descend into chaos if the subband restrictions are relaxed or removed. The only problems that I ever hear seem to occur during contests...and perhaps, if people are concerned about contesters operating incompatible modes, violating the IARU bandplans, and "stepping on" DX windows, they should lean on the organizations that sponsor those contests: ARRL, CQ Magazine, some of the foreign clubs and societies, etc., getting them to limit the contests to portions of each band (voluntarily, not through government regulation) and to disqualify any contester who doesn't comply with the IARU bandplans. If enough contest logs are thrown out due to contesters violating the IARU bandplans, those contesters will clean up their act quite fast. No contester wants to operate all weekend, only to get a score of ZERO! Phil Galasso K2PG
