>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 In this age of the Internet and cell-phones, *all* the modes you cite are "sooo 'stone-age' " aren't they! Perhaps it is time to redefine a "communication" between hams as a person-to-person contact in real time, and not using the ham bands as a "stone-age" replacement for the Internet. Our FCC regulations already disallow any regular use of the ham bands that can be accomplished by other radio means (cell-phones are radios, BTW). This includes weather reports, catalogs, and bulletins used by sailors, and even email, which, in this age of satphones and satellite data phones, is also so "stone-age" over HF radio. 97.113 Prohibited transmissions. (a) No amateur station shall transmit: (5) Communications, on a regular basis, which could reasonably be furnished alternatively through other radio services. If the FCC does not start enforcing this regulation, ARQ messaging "services" as you suggest are going to take over the ham bands as a common-carrier replacement, and "amateur radio" will cease to be "amateur" radio. During contests, we all know that there is not enough room on the ham bands just for person-to-person radiosport contacts as it is. Once amateur radio ceases to be a hobby activity, and occasionally an emergency backup communications capability, commercial interests will have a strong argument for taking away our bands and the FCC will sell them to the highest bidder for billions of dollars. Sorry, but I do not share your vision of the continuing evolution of HF radio communications, because it is not "communications", but "using" the ham bands as a poor replacement for the Internet. All the discussion about how Winlink users trample others on the frequency is directly related to "using" the ham bands as a free email service, instead of for person-to-person, real-time, *hobby* communications. There is no second person in real-time, that can communicate the need to QSY when advised there is an ongoing QSO on the frequency, local to his station, but not detectable by the remote station, in an email delivery system. It is this capability that makes it possible for radio amateurs to *share* a limited amount of spectrum that one-way systems do not possess. Skip KH6TY
