Roger, Under the most recent change to the pending rules, Pactor 3 will now be allowed on the fully automatic areas due to the removal of the J2D modes as 500 Hz only modes.
Of course, you have to have an automatic area within the band you wish to operate, in order to use the wide modes when operating fully automatic. Unless the FCC reverses itself from its decision a few weeks ago with its mega expansion of the voice/image portions of the band, and restores the automatic area just above 3600 kHz, or some other area in the 75/80 meter band, we can not expect any fully automatic area on 80 meters at this time. Other bands that have automatic areas will allow stations to continue operating as they have been able to do for many years in those narrow subbands, either fully automatic for up to 500 Hz modes or semi-automatic for > 500 Hz modes In any case, semi-automatic modes that are 500 Hz or less, will continue to be able to operate anywhere in the data/RTTY area. That would include BBS or mail servers using Pactor 1 and 2, PSKmail, etc., that are operating with a human on one side of the connection. However, fully automatic modes, even if 500 Hz or less (such as the NTS/Digital System, Packet autoforwarding system) will not be able to operate on 80 meters. It seems to me that the ARRL request is rather late! I would be surprised if the FCC would actually cancel their decision to expand the phone/image area since this was their decision and they made it based upon the information that they felt was forthcoming or for whatever reasons they had. 73, Rick, KV9U Roger J. Buffington wrote: >David Struebel wrote: > > >> There are other digital automatic users besides the email Winlink 2K >> systems you cite. The National Traffic System (certainly a part of >> ham radio, and has been around for over 50 years) uses the automatic >> section of 80 meters for passing traffic thru the NTS Digital system. >> The FCC new rule would prohibit this operation on 80 meters. >> >> Dave WB2FTX Eastern Area Digital Coordinator NTSD >> >> k >> >> >> > >Frankly, that would work for me. Hope it does. Does that mean Pactor >automatic traffic will be illegal on 80M unless the ARRL petition is >approved? > >de Roger W6VZV > > >
