Look at it this way... The record suggests that ARRL has long ago sold out to Winlink, or at the very least is willing to sacrifice the HF frequencies so Winlink's automatic Pactor-III stations have free reign over the phone bands instead of being confined to the automatic subbands as the FCC RULES now require, and can support both Winlink, and ARRL using Winlink to replace the NTS , as already declared in the minutes of the ARRL board.
The main purpose of the "bandwidth" petition is to provide more frequencies for Winlink, so their less than 1% of the hams DO NOT HAVE TO WAIT FOR A FREQUENCY IN USE BY ANOTHER WINLINK ROBOT! Even if the "busy channel" detector in the SCS modems is not turned off, the phone bands would become more crowded with Winlink robots because the idea is, again, NOT TO HAVE TO WAIT for a clear frequency to pass email. It could have been a petition to provide the benefits of segmentation by bandwidth for digital modes, but ARRL officials chose to give control of their petition to Winlink officials who tailored it to their own minority purposes. Sad, but true. Let's hope that the FCC listens to the commentors and does not act on the petition, and that ARRL submits a new petition that does not favor Winlink that will be for the good of all. HOWEVER, we do need those rules to prevent the few from dominating the frequencies for their own minority purpose or for the convenience of not having to WAIT (horrors!) for a clear frequency. As much as many of us dislike the FCC regulations in some areas, they do serve to protect the many from being by dominated for the convenience of the few. Not everybody plays fair, and the operational behavior of the Winlink robots and clients is a good example. In all fairness, the environment on many boats is noisy and the crew is busy staying on course or afloat, and probably have little time to carefully listen for activity on a frequency before just pressing the button on Airmail and scanning to connect with a robot to see if, "You've got mail"! Pactor-III is a VISUAL mode, not an audible one, and to use it does not even require listening with the ear, so it is easy to just dispense with listening, press a button, and let the software do the work. SCAMP-style "busy signal detectors" would help the situation, but not fix it, due to the pauses common in phone conversations, unless the "listening time" and intelligence of the busy signal detector were long enough to insure the frequency is not actually in use with conversation. Add to that the inability of a robot to send "QRL" and listen for a reply from a phone station, and it is clear that the only solution is to keep all automatic and so-called "semiautomatic" activity confined by RULES in a narrow subband where they can battle for a frequency with their busy signal detectors but will not randomly disrupt the other 99% of hams trying to communicate on the rest of the band. We need both - effective busy signal detectors to maximize performance between automatic stations within a narrow subband, regulations to keep them there, and regulations to prevent other minority interests from dominating at the expense of the many. Just my two cents worth... 73, Skip KH6TY
