James French writes: > Can it be 'justified' to 'clog up' a new band with allowing ANY digital > mode, > and I am also including digitized voice into this, just to have it be there? > Why not use what is already staged and developed and on the bands that > already > have the allocations?
The reason for allowing digital modes on 60 is the same as the reason for allocating channels on 60 to hams in the first place: sometimes two stations are too close to work on 40 due to F-layer skip, and too distant to work on 80 due to D-layer absorption, while 60 will permit effective communication. This is equally true for any mode. W.r.t. EMCOMM, if a served agency needs hams for backup record communication using digital modes (whether email or radiograms), we don't want to be unable to serve that agency when propagation fails on both 80 and 40 meters while the phone lines are down, if 60m would work. Nor should we be reduced to reading radiograms over voice radio on 60m if a data mode would be both faster and more reliable. While much EMCOMM traffic is tactical rather than formal, some of it is not: EMCOMM hams should be prepared for both, and the regulations should not prevent us from doing both as effectively as possible. -- 73 de kw6h, ex-ae6vw, Chris
