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Police work is only easy in a police state. Ham operators have to decide whether they want to enforce the rules more easily, or whether they want their protect

Police work is only easy in a police state. Ham operators have to decide whether they want to enforce the rules more easily, or whether they want their protected slices of bandwidth to remain relevant in the 21st century. Constellations of LEO communications satellites already exist, and they are becoming cheaper and more accessible. When a message can be sent from anywhere on Earth to anywhere else on Earth using antennas smaller than a thumbnail, with verification of receipt, independently of local weather, while a billion other people are doing exactly the same thing at exactly the same time, I will strongly wonder why people are still using a channel that could otherwise carry trillions of those messages to try to unreliably bounce Morse code along the terminator from Kansas to Kamchatka. Opening up a free-for-all in the amateur bands might just produce outsider ideas for interference resolution and deconfliction that are not encumbered by telecoms patents. I want the amateur bands to be a free-for-all. And also free, for all.

jdietrich 7y ago
>I want the amateur bands to be a free-for-all. And also free, for all. Then they aren't the amateur bands any more - they're ISM bands with really high power limits. Interference is a thing. Modern technology doesn't magic away the problem of interference, it just gives us some tools for mitigating it in some circumstances. The amateur bands give you the right to use high power levels on big blocks of spectrum, but those rights come with responsibilities. You might prefer anarchy, but the FCC doesn't and neither do the majority of spectrum users.
- logfromblammo 7y ago
  Considering only the preferences of the spectrum users is begging the question. The people who are allowed to use the spectrum for the purposes they prefer, prefer that the bands be restricted to their preferred purposes. ARRL and FCC make the rules because they have both existed since before I was born, and have always picked the next generation of rules-makers from within their own ranks. I never actually agreed that they should be the ones with power over the airwaves, and neither have given me many reasons to do so. The FCC has done nothing to reverse, halt, or even slow broadcast media consolidation in the US. Why should I expect it to be penny wise when it is so pound foolish? They have lost their mandate, but kept their guns. It may be the right time for a little anarchy again now, and may the next RF allocation organization that arises out of the chaos remember that interference-free radio communication is a privilege, not a right.
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    What. FCC is what keeps all wireless communications in the US working. TV, satellite, HAM, ISM, nautical, aeronautical, you name it. What do you think would happen if FCC took to heart you not recognizing their legitimacy and disbanded? Do you think your Wi-Fi or cellphone would keep working reliably?
    - logfromblammo 7y ago
      Those who paid for licenses would be rather put out, and there would be large and painful disruptions in service. But probably not as bad as can be imagined. A lot of stuff would probably still work just fine, and only suffer occasional outages. My cellphone already doesn't work reliably now, but my wi-fi would still work, as I blast my neighbors' routers out of my living room by increasing my transmitter power, and we might even have a grand war of RF attrition, which could spill over into previously reserved bands, including air, military, and emergency services. Or maybe the next version of router firmware handles it. Wi-fi is in unlicensed spectrum. It already has to contend with cordless landline phones, microwave ovens, baby monitors, garage door openers, and home security cameras. And that has prompted the creation of new technology to make it work. So now I can enjoy an encrypted Mbps link from the wall to my workstation without running a wire, even as neighbors on all sides do the same thing. I'd guess that the market for SDRs, highly-directional custom-geometry antennas, laser-optical data links, and wired network building retrofits would explode. Mobile phone service would backslide in quality. GPS would be frequently jammed or spoofed. Eventually, someone would mess with air or ship traffic and get arrested for terrorism. TV would have to come up with some way to sign its signal, so that no one can interrupt kids' programming with shock imagery, or inject pirate ads over the normal ads. Or maybe they just give up, and stream their feed over the Internet, in competition with everyone who wasn't protected by an FCC license. The FCC keeps everything working by the FCC's system. Without the FCC, it would have to work by a different system, or it might not work for everyone, for all existing use cases. It is not guaranteed that any such future theoretical system would protect any given usage of RF broadcast. Nor is it guaranteed that any usage would be threatened. If you don't run a service that is an uncontroversially unmitigated good--or at the least unremarkably banal--someone will probably try to interfere with you or usurp your station squat, and that will be your problem to solve. In order to get back what was lost with the disappearance of the FCC, some work would be required. In my view, developing the frequency to be more usable, more beneficial, or more accessible to the public is what gives you the right to use it. Other people may have different criteria.

jdietrich 7y ago

>I want the amateur bands to be a free-for-all. And also free, for all. Then they aren't the amateur bands any more - they're ISM bands with really high power limits. Interference is a thing. Modern technology doesn't magic away the problem of interference, it just gives us some tools for mitigating it in some circumstances. The amateur bands give you the right to use high power levels on big blocks of spectrum, but those rights come with responsibilities. You might prefer anarchy, but the FCC doesn't and neither do the majority of spectrum users.

logfromblammo 7y ago
Considering only the preferences of the spectrum users is begging the question. The people who are allowed to use the spectrum for the purposes they prefer, prefer that the bands be restricted to their preferred purposes. ARRL and FCC make the rules because they have both existed since before I was born, and have always picked the next generation of rules-makers from within their own ranks. I never actually agreed that they should be the ones with power over the airwaves, and neither have given me many reasons to do so. The FCC has done nothing to reverse, halt, or even slow broadcast media consolidation in the US. Why should I expect it to be penny wise when it is so pound foolish? They have lost their mandate, but kept their guns. It may be the right time for a little anarchy again now, and may the next RF allocation organization that arises out of the chaos remember that interference-free radio communication is a privilege, not a right.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  What. FCC is what keeps all wireless communications in the US working. TV, satellite, HAM, ISM, nautical, aeronautical, you name it. What do you think would happen if FCC took to heart you not recognizing their legitimacy and disbanded? Do you think your Wi-Fi or cellphone would keep working reliably?
  - logfromblammo 7y ago
    Those who paid for licenses would be rather put out, and there would be large and painful disruptions in service. But probably not as bad as can be imagined. A lot of stuff would probably still work just fine, and only suffer occasional outages. My cellphone already doesn't work reliably now, but my wi-fi would still work, as I blast my neighbors' routers out of my living room by increasing my transmitter power, and we might even have a grand war of RF attrition, which could spill over into previously reserved bands, including air, military, and emergency services. Or maybe the next version of router firmware handles it. Wi-fi is in unlicensed spectrum. It already has to contend with cordless landline phones, microwave ovens, baby monitors, garage door openers, and home security cameras. And that has prompted the creation of new technology to make it work. So now I can enjoy an encrypted Mbps link from the wall to my workstation without running a wire, even as neighbors on all sides do the same thing. I'd guess that the market for SDRs, highly-directional custom-geometry antennas, laser-optical data links, and wired network building retrofits would explode. Mobile phone service would backslide in quality. GPS would be frequently jammed or spoofed. Eventually, someone would mess with air or ship traffic and get arrested for terrorism. TV would have to come up with some way to sign its signal, so that no one can interrupt kids' programming with shock imagery, or inject pirate ads over the normal ads. Or maybe they just give up, and stream their feed over the Internet, in competition with everyone who wasn't protected by an FCC license. The FCC keeps everything working by the FCC's system. Without the FCC, it would have to work by a different system, or it might not work for everyone, for all existing use cases. It is not guaranteed that any such future theoretical system would protect any given usage of RF broadcast. Nor is it guaranteed that any usage would be threatened. If you don't run a service that is an uncontroversially unmitigated good--or at the least unremarkably banal--someone will probably try to interfere with you or usurp your station squat, and that will be your problem to solve. In order to get back what was lost with the disappearance of the FCC, some work would be required. In my view, developing the frequency to be more usable, more beneficial, or more accessible to the public is what gives you the right to use it. Other people may have different criteria.