Subject: [NEXTEL-1] ==>FCC INVITES COMMENTS ON AMATEUR RADIO RESTRUCTURING PLANS

From: Marcelrf <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 27 Mar 2004 17:24:35 -0500

==>FCC INVITES COMMENTS ON AMATEUR RADIO RESTRUCTURING PLANS The FCC is
seeking comment on three plans, one from the ARRL, that would reshape
the Amateur Service licensing structure. Each Petition for Rule Making
responds to World Radiocommunication Conference 2003 actions last summer
that made changes to Article 25 of the international Radio Regulations.

While differing substantially in some other aspects, the three petitions
call for modifications at Amateur Radio's entry level and for a
three-tiered license system. One petition goes beyond licensing
structure to recommend additional changes to amateur testing and HF
digital privileges. A fourth petition focuses solely on the Morse
requirement. Comments are due by April 24 on all four petitions.
Designated RM-10867, ARRL's petition asks the FCC to create a new
entry-level license class--being called "Novice" for now. It would offer
limited HF CW/data and phone/image privileges on 80, 40, 15 and 10
meters plus certain VHF and UHF privileges.

The League plan also would consolidate Technician, Tech Plus (Technician
with Element 1 credit) and General licensees into a new General license
that no longer would require a Morse examination. Current Technician and
Tech Plus licensees automatically would gain General privileges, and
Advanced license holders automatically would be upgraded to Extra
without further testing. Applicants for Amateur Extra would still have
to pass a 5 WPM Morse code examination, but the General and Extra
written exams would stay the same. A news report "ARRL to Propose New
Entry-Level License, Code-Free HF Access,"
<http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2004/01/19/1/>, has further details.
Frequently asked questions (FAQs) are addressed on the ARRL Web site,

<http://www.arrl.org/news/restructuring2/faq.html>. In a wide-ranging
petition designated as RM-10868, an "unincorporated grassroots
organization" calling itself the Radio Amateur Foundation (RAF) has
asked the FCC to modify the Technician ticket to allow limited HF phone,
image, data and CW privileges. HF phone/image privileges would be
restricted to portions of the 160, 15 and 10-meter bands. The group also
proposes retaining the 5 WPM Morse requirement for General and Amateur
Extra applicants, upgrading Advanced class holders to Extra and Novices
to Technician.

The Radio Amateur Foundation said it sees no need to change licensing
requirements for General or Amateur Extra applicants. The RAF also wants
to scrap existing Amateur Radio question pools and start over from
scratch, keeping the question pools out of the public domain and
requiring a 10-day waiting period before retesting. In addition, it
would permit only Generals and Amateur Extras--or Technicians licensed
more than two years--to request vanity call signs. The RAF has further
asked the FCC to permit digital experimentation from 29.0 to 29.3 MHz at
bandwidths of up to 15 kHz. In his two-page petition designated
RM-10869, Ronald D. Lowrance, K4SX, calls on the FCC to retain the 5 WPM
Morse code requirement for General class applicants and to raise the
Morse requirement to 13 WPM for Amateur Extra class applicants. He
called Morse code "the most reliable mode of communication" in an
emergency. Lowrance would make no change in Technician licensing
requirements.

The National Conference of Volunteer Examiner Coordinators (NCVEC) wants
the FCC to establish a new "Communicator" entry-level license. Its
petition, designated RM-10870, reiterates the NCVEC's call--first made
last fall in RM-10787--to altogether eliminate the Morse code testing
requirement. The NCVEC petition would upgrade all current Novices to
Communicator class, all current Technician and Tech Plus (Technician
with Element 1 credit) licensees to General and all Advanced class
licensees to Amateur Extra without further testing. Once the Morse
requirement goes away, the NCVEC said in its filing, "there will be no
effective difference between the Technician and General class licenses."
The new Communicator ticket would permit a power limit of 100 W on bands
below 24 MHz and 50 W on all frequencies above 24 MHz. Communicator
licensees would have to use commercially manufactured equipment (or gear
built from a commercial kit). Communicator licensees could operate both
voice and digital modes on 80, 40, 15 and 10 meters plus VHF and UHF up
to 70 cm. All three license restructuring plans call for changes to the
present HF subbands. Interested parties may view and comment on these
petitions via the FCC Electronic Comment Filing System (ECFS)
<http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/ecfs/>. When entering the RM number in the ECFS
"Proceeding" field, RM must be in capital letters and the hyphen must be
included.

http://www.arrl.org/arrlletter/04/0326/

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