Andy obrien wrote: > Anyone know if this mode is legal in the USA. ? Why would it not be Andy?
If it is Audio Phase Shift Keying then it's no different to PSK31, if it is more like WSJT then as long as JT65A (and all the other WSJT modes) are legal, then what makes this one any different? I know there's a debate in the USA about MCW, but ROS strikes me, at first viewing, as probably being PSK, or at least AFSK, and just as legal as all the PSK, AFSK type modes and RTTY using an audio soundcard system. I wonder if anyone asked if FSK RTTY was legal when the first RTTY terminal units were used with Amateur radios with FSK terminals provided, in the USA? ;-) Here in the UK some people tried to say that Packet (AX:25) was a 'code or cypher' which, at that time, was proscribed by the UK Amateur Licence. However, in the end, common sense prevailed and we were allowed to use Packet, and no rules were changed to allow that to happen... To go off topic a bit, in commerce companies look at the law and say "what does this allow us to do, because it is not actually described as illegal", where as, in Amateur Radio, the mind set seems to be "what can I say is illegal, because I don't like it personally" and then other Radio Amateurs look at the rules to try and decide what they don't say is permissible and their immediate reaction is to ask some authority, which could probably care less, to make a ruling when, in fact, it's all a moot point and actually probably completely legal and harmless. Unless you are one of the people who have decided, on no authority except their own, that you don't like it and it should be 'banned' forthwith, who cares? Dave (G0DJA)
