Regarding the continuing vocal disagreement (and flame-wars) between the "live chat" operators, "Morse" operators, and the "BBS/Winlink" or "ALE network" operators: Two HF bands are discussed below as examples of possible ongoing evolution throughout the amateur radio service's spectrum allocations ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------- There is some history that relates to the popularity and use of various non-Morse operations prior to year 1995, and now . Non-Morse operation in the past was only live keyboard to keyboard mode until the innovative spirit of amateur radio operators realized the value of ARQ modes for error-free message handling, starting first with HF Packet forwarding. Back "in the stone age" of amateur radio, and before the advent of "sound-card modes", the prevailing location for Amtor and pactor was specifically between 14070 and 14080, with 14080 to 14099 being for RTTY operations. Back in this "Stone age", 40 meter Amtor/pactor was allocated to the 7070 to 7080 KHz segment, and RTTY operations from 7080 to 7099 KHz .... As time passed, fewer individual stations were using Amtor/pactor/G-tor for live-chat, which left primarily the pactor stations being used for BBS mailboxes and message forwarding ... This change in usage was primarily due to the preference of radio amateurs to adopt less-costly methods of digital communications that did not require the investment of $300 or more for multi-mode TNC's of the time such as the early versions of the Kantronics KAM; MFJ-1278, and AEA PK-232 hardware modems. A solution to the interference problem between ARQ modes and widely popular "sound-card", and other types of "Live chat modes" using data communications would be to migrate "live-chat" operations farther down the band, such as 7050 to 7070 , and 14050 to 14070 .... Due to the elimination of Morse code as a requirement for an amateur radio license, it is likely in the future that the "current use" of the "RTTY/DATA" bands would be inverted in usage, i.e. Morse code operations would *primarily* be in a more narrowly-defined sub band, while data modes would exist over a much larger band segment in each amateur radio band than Morse operations ... On a legal basis, Morse operations would continue to have access to the full allocation of each amateur radio HF band... This may "ruffle the feathers of the old-timers", however Morse code will still be of major importance as a very simple and manual mode of communications when more robust modes are not available.. Morse code will also remain important in the future as a part of living history ... It is likely in the future that, for example, Morse operations may be in the
14000 to 14050 segment, and data modes between 14050 and 14099 and 14101 to 14120 KHz, while Morse operations on 40 meters may be between 7000 to 7050Khz with RTTY/data between 7050 and 7150KHz. Message forwarding operations would likely be toward the upper-portions of the RTTY/DATA bands, while manual, "Live chat" operations would be farther down in frequency with respect to the BBS/forwarding stations (whether they are Winlink or other modes yet to be developed) Flame on this idea if you wish, however robust "live-chat" sound-card modes, ARQ messaging modes, and Automatic Link Establishment (ALE) modes will all gain increased popularity, acceptance, and adoption because of their more efficient and reliable communication capabilities as compared to manual and non-keyboard modes .. Elaine ... -- Patricia (Elaine) Gibbons WA6UBE / AAR9JA http://www.qrz.com/wa6ube "Being a bush pilot does not mean that I care much for our President !!"
