Brett Gazdzinski wrote:
N2DTS: "I don't understand why some people like to limit other peoples activity, or choices." AB7E: So it's OK for me to hold a keg party on the street in front of your house late at night? It isn't about arbitrarily wanting to limit the activities of the wide-band ESSB folks ... it's about not wanting the activities of the wide-band ESSB folks to arbitrarily limit the number of hams who can enjoy themselves on the relatively narrow HF bands. N2DTS: "It seems to me like there is very little important communication going on in ham radio, so why stress the narrow bandwidth? Would it block some critical or important communication?" AB7E: There is relatively little "important" communication going on at all in ham radio, and that applies at least as much to the wide-band ESSB folks. How "important" is it to spend an hour critiquing that last 0.1 db of voice frequency response below 50 Hz? The issue isn't the importance of the content ... the issue is the right to reasonable opportunity to express it. N2DTS: "Ham radio just seems like a bunch of people who enjoy fooling with radio equipment, so why not just let them fool with it?" AB7E: While ESSB has endured scorn from mainstream hams for some time, it really wasn't too much of an issue while their experiments (and their splatter) were held to rather few frequencies that everyone else could generally manage to avoid. Now that ESSB has found a way to take up even more space with wide bandwidths and its practitioners are openly advocating operation anywhere on the HF bands, it has become a totally different issue. If your upwind neighbor enjoyed burning tires in his back yard, would you be inclined to "just let him fool with it"? N2DTS: "There are other modes much narrower than ssb, why not not ban ssb as wasting spectrum? AB7E: There aren't any practical VOICE modes narrower than SSB. FCC regulations and common-use band plans try to provide room for everyone to enjoy the hobby without unduly infringing on others right to do the same. Wide-band ESSB is like insisting on wearing a big hat in a crowded movie. N2DTS: "I am not fond of RTTY, or slow scan TV, or ssb, or many other things other hams do, but the last thing I would want to do is restrict something that others find enjoyable." AB7E: So why not open up the HF bands to wide-band FM? I have no problem at all with people using the K3 for clean ESSB when the band activity allows it. I do have a problem with people using ESSB on any rig when the bands are crowded, and I have a significant problem with people extending ESSB to ridiculous bandwidths like 6 KHz and beyond, and I have a huge problem with people generating splatter by pushing a rig that can't handle it to ESSB bandwidths. Dave AB7E ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:[email protected] This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
