Although a minor part of my discussion, one must not forget that radio signals, particularly on HF have no boundaries and affect others outside of a political jurisdiction.
Whatever the FCC decides here in the U.S. has effects on the rest of the world, sometimes profoundly so. Particularly when it comes to modes and sub bands. The countries that are close by, such as Canada and Mexico feel the most effect. A good example would be the opening of the phone bands here in the U.S.! While the groups you suggest do not seem to be discussing the subjects at hand, here is a true story from my personal experience: Some years ago while I was on a farming group (list), the person who "owned" it grew very tired of hearing about dairy farming in the Midwest U.S. He felt that since it was a World Wide Group, regional issues should not be discussed even though the majority of interest was from the U.S. and in particular the Midwest U.S. The owner got abusive with some of the members who were the most knowledgeable about the subject and knew what they were talking about vs. some foreign "experts" who actually did not. He even removed a key U.S. farmer for daring to challenge the conventional wisdom of dairying from NZ by one their "experts." In the end, dairy farmer near my area started a new group which I did not support at first because we would wind of fragmenting hundreds of participants into different groups rather than getting the knowledge in the one group. (Cross pollination to use a farming term, or perhaps critical mass?). The new group grew as the most knowledgeable people posted to that group with more U.S. farmers moving to the new group. Fewer people participated on the World Wide group. Today, I co-moderate the "new" group along with the person removed from the "World Wide Group" and the WWG is basically defunct because over time, most the thinking people moved to the new group that allows all discussions to take place in an open forum. Here is the irony of all this: most of the world wide interest is now focused in the new group, not just the regional interest because the group was made available for all. There are always new people coming and going and what seems old hat to some is quite new to them. There is nothing wrong with discussing Norwegian rules that impact digital issues. In fact, we want to know about them. 73, Rick, KV9U Steinar Aanesland wrote: > "I know there is a group of you who do not like discussions of digital > issues of these types (..) " . > Well , let me quote John "VE5MU : "We've heard all this before ". This > extreme ARRL/FCC focus > has insignificant interest outside US. What will happen if Norwegian > hams start spaming this group with Norwegian rules? > Why not use: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FCC-US/ or this one: > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DigiMode_HF_Band_Plans/ ? > > 73 de LA5VNA Steinar >
