Regulation by Bandwidth Proposals, Strategic Planning Top ARRL Board Agenda
NEWINGTON, CT, Jul 7, 2005--When it meets July 15-16, the ARRL Board of Directors will consider recommendations that could result in a petition calling on the FCC to regulate the use of amateur spectrum by emission bandwidth rather than by emission mode. The ARRL Executive Committee reached consensus on a set of regulation-by-bandwidth proposals April 9, and the League has received more than 500 comments from the amateur community since the latest version of the draft recommendations went public. The ARRL will file nothing with the FCC until the Board gives its go-ahead, however. ARRL CEO David Sumner, K1ZZ, says the Board essentially has four options.
"The Board can adopt them, adopt them in modified form, decline to adopt them or postpone the item pending further study," he said. "The ARRL has heard the amateur community's concerns and suggestions and made changes to its draft proposals as a result, and we're still listening." The Board began work on the bandwidth concept in 2002, and the League has sought members' comments on specific concepts at several steps along the way. Many amateurs have expressed concern about interference between incompatible modes in the most popular HF bands.
The EC has advised against asking the FCC to segregate digital and analog emissions by rule. Instead, the Committee believes, the FCC should simply set out band segments in which amateurs may employ bandwidths of up to a specific limit and leave any further subdivision up to band planning. The EC has acknowledged, however, that band-planning mechanisms will have to be improved for its approach to work well.
The EC's proposals take into account the ARRL's prior "Novice refarming" petition that includes expansion of some HF 'phone bands, incorporated in the FCC Notice of Proposed Rule Making in WT Docket 04-140.
Sumner has discussed various facets of the regulation-by-bandwidth concept and has detailed the evolution of the ARRL Executive Committee's recommendations in his "It Seems to Us . . ." editorials in the September 2004, April 2005 and June 2005 issues of QST.
The other top Board meeting agenda item is a review and revision of the League's Strategic Plan. The 15 directors will review the status of strategies selected for implementation during 2005 and will decide upon strategies for 2006. The Board also will receive or hear reports and consider recommendations from its officers and from various committees and coordinators.
ARRL President Jim Haynie, W5JBP, will wield the gavel for this month's Board meeting, which will take place in Windsor, Connecticut. Radio Amateurs of Canada President Earle Smith, VE6NM, will be a guest of the Board at the gathering.
Page last modified: 10:18 AM, 11 Jul 2005 ET
Page author: awextra@arrl.org
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