There is really nothing that baffling when you consider that NZ and Oz are so remote that even the lower HF bands are not often going to bother the larger population areas that much.
But it works both ways. The Canadians, who are immediately adjacent to the U.S., have in the past had phone sub bands well below the U.S. amateurs and if you recall what happened some years ago, the Canadian hams were none too pleased with the increased downward phone expansion for U.S. hams and moved their phone operations even lower to continue to have an exclusive area. Of course now we are so far down on 80 meters and to a certain extent on 40 meters that there is not much more room to expand into. The more hams you have under a given set of rules, the more impact you will have if those rules are liberalized. I am not suggesting that this is necessarily bad or even good. But it will change the dynamics between countries. If you have a maximum 6 kHz BW, can you still operate AM phone? Aren't the U.S. rules even more liberal with something more like 9 kHz? I personally do not find it good amateur practice for hams to use SSB below 7100 if they have the next few hundred kHz above that available to them for SSB, unless they are working DX stations who can not go up. Split operation means that you are using twice the BW which is not very spectrum conserving. The current lowering of SSB here in the U.S. to 7125 seems a good fit for current useage, but of course I admit that could change depending upon operating trends. What rule do you think is stopping U.S. hams from using RFSM2400 other than if it is not yet posted with a technical description? 73, Rick, KV9U John Bradley wrote: > This is the part that is incredibly baffling to those of us outside > the United States. > > The argument that us Cannucks and our Aussie cousins have very few > hams and very limited > population is valid only on VHF/UHF, since HF has no boundaries when > it comes to propagation. > > 90% of Canada's population is within 100 miles of the US border, so > all of our radio traffic heard on the ham bands is > from the south. The Aussies have Japan as one easy bounce for them, > with the multitude of JA hams providing > lots of traffic. > > We used to have a lot of rules, modes , emission types, etc. similar > to the FCC. This has since been abolished in favour > of frequency limits, maximum bandwidth (6khz) and maximum power > allowed. No regulations exixt on what modes can be used where, etc. > This has not produced chaos in the ham bands, nor do we set up and > operate digital data in what is traditionally the SSB > portion of the band. We simply follow the traditional band usage that > has been around for 70 years or more. > > Sure we mix modes at some points, especially on 40M where from 7050 to > 7100 is used by SSB, RTTY and other digital modes > at the same time in Canada. Has it been a problem? Not to my > knowledge. Would I knowingly start calling CQ in a digital mode on top > of a SSB QSO? No, out of respect for my fellow hams who were there > first. The only real problems we have on 40M is the large number of DX > stations > using that segment during a contest, transmitting blind since they are > all running splits and listening high on 40M. (I know I'll hear from > Danny on this) > > Sure there will always be "lids" who have to run power and whatever > since "it is their right to do so,and no guvmint gonna tell me what to do" > We have all seen them on PSK31, running enough power to run a small > village and basically wiping the band out for everyone. > fortunately they are the minority. > > So why not go for less rules? Maybe the FCC would welcome this since > they would not have to enforce the present rule structure, > thus saving a little money. The hams in the US would then be allowed > to experiment with new technologies such as RFSM2400 without fear of > penalties, and this in turn would lead to better modes. > > It seems to come down to a matter of trust and respect within the ham > community to be able to work with few regulations. > > John > VE5MU
