Could the FCC "sunset" all American amateur radio?

[ten13]

"National Security" is whatever the sitting government says it is.

So using the "National Security" thing as an excuse is not outside the realm of possibility....but probably wouldn't even be necessary IF they wanted to do away with Amateur.

And, as others have said, the "need" for Amateur radio during a disaster just isn't there anymore.

 

[WB9YBM]

Railroad PTC is all data, no voice.

How many channels do they need?

 

[WB9YBM]

And, as others have said, the "need" for Amateur radio during a disaster just isn't there anymore.

Even when it was needed, the government just shut down ham radio and drafted all the ops into government or military radio positions (like they did in WWII).

 

[mmckenna]

Even when it was needed, the government just shut down ham radio and drafted all the ops into government or military radio positions (like they did in WWII).

Unlikely most of the current crop of amateurs would qualify for military service now.
And unlikely the military would need them. Technology has advanced to the point that needing a dedicated guy to work a radio is becoming rare.

 

[WB9YBM]

Unlikely most of the current crop of amateurs would qualify for military service now.
And unlikely the military would need them. Technology has advanced to the point that needing a dedicated guy to work a radio is becoming rare.

I agree; same thing's happened in merchant marine communications recently, too (last thing I heard their "sparks" is doing more ship-board computer work & such more so than radio work...)

 

[kg6nlw]

I didn't want to get into this, but Amateur Radio is far from what you guys say it is. There's a highly renewed interest in it, especially in California where it's being used for fire info and search and rescue along with evacuations and daily udpates.

Regards,

-Frank C.

 

[kb9mwr]

1) How is it a threat to national security?
2) The majority of our bandwidth is not really sought after for commercial means.

The majority of our bandwidth is above 900 MHz, and that is the highly sought after stuff. I agree anything below 500 MHz is of less interest mostly due to multipath. The sad part is as those fairly unused microwave allocations of ours get parceled out, I do believe those are the bands of the future for ham radio. I say this because all the bands below 900 MHz have antiqued rules and incumbent users.

I wrote this 15 years ago:
Did you know in the US amateurs have access to appoximately:
3.75 MHz of HF (160m-10m) spectrum
67 MHz of VHF/UHF (6m-33cm) spectrum
24.095 GHz of microwave (23cm-300GHz) spectrum

 

[GlobalNorth]

I didn't want to get into this, but Amateur Radio is far from what you guys say it is. There's a highly renewed interest in it, especially in California where it's being used for fire info and search and rescue along with evacuations and daily udpates.

An use in exigency does not constitute a dynamic trend.

 

[JerryX]

I wrote this 15 years ago:
Did you know in the US amateurs have access to appoximately:
3.75 MHz of HF (160m-10m) spectrum
67 MHz of VHF/UHF (6m-33cm) spectrum
24.095 GHz of microwave (23cm-300GHz) spectrum

Interesting comparison. Here's how those numbers equate to percentages:

US Hams have access to:
13% of the HF spectrum
8% of the VHF/UHF spectrum
8% of the microwave spectrum

 

[K9DWB]

Hmm wonder what a 10-15 meter CB would be like? Sorry, I got sucked into a rabbit hole.

It does seem that Amateur takes up a small portion of what's available. So the FCC is either taking something back, is planning on making us pay to access it, or both. Then after that, we ride into the sunset. Thanks for the kick to the face FCC. I'm tired of out of touch bureaucrats messing up all my hobbies.

 

[mmckenna]

Hmm wonder what a 10-15 meter CB would be like? Sorry, I got sucked into a rabbit hole.

Much like it is now.
The FCC doesn't give a flying rip about CB. It's been left to fester in its own filth. FCC isn't going to waste any time on CB.

If someone -really- wanted to "fix" CB, they would start the requests to the FCC to allow FM on CB, like many countries already do. At least that way we'd get some decent audio and could run coded squelch. That would at least make it tolerable.

If the general public really wanted to use reliable communications means, GMRS would see a lot more users, and users using mobile radios with decent antennas. But they won't, and they don't.

It does seem that Amateur takes up a small portion of what's available. So the FCC is either taking something back, is planning on making us pay to access it, or both. Then after that, we ride into the sunset. Thanks for the kick to the face FCC. I'm tired of out of touch bureaucrats messing up all my hobbies.

Nothing is changing, yet. Change will eventually happen. It's the one constant. Hams can have a coronary about it, but time marches on.

FCC doesn't have the public interest in mind, however I'd not really call amateur radio "public interest", unless we count that little fraction of the population that claims to use it. There's a lot of pieces to this puzzle. Hams often overlook the fact that they hold secondary allocation on the higher frequencies. Hams don't 'own' them.

As for the FCC, they've been doing silly stuff for a long time. Enforcement goes to broadcasting to protect the interests of the big conglomerates. Want to see the FCC snap too? Interfere with a station run by I-heart- radio, cumulus, etc. FCC goes where the money is and where the industry lobbyists tell them too.

FCC sells public spectrum to the highest bidder with little notice to the things they screw up. Not long ago they were going to let a large corporation set up high power transmitters adjacent to GPS frequencies, and run the risk of essentially destroying the public facing GPS network. They really are that dumb.

 

[K9DWB]

Yep, pretty much status quo there. Disrupt or anger the money flow and FCC jumps. As is though, I think the rate things change, there won't be much of anything notable by the time I'm too old (or a SK) to care what the FCC does.

 

[bill4long]

Amateur radio is a slowly dying hobby.

New ham licenses up to 2017. About 10,000 new licenses a year. Not exactly dying.

 

[bill4long]

1.25 is not dead...

I use 1.25 several times a week. So do others around here.

 

[Citywide173]

New ham licenses up to 2017. About 10,000 new licenses a year. Not exactly dying.

View attachment 93742

How many of those are active and use the bands regularly? Just because the licenses are being issued doesn't mean that people are actually using them.

 

[sonm10]

There's two different discussions going here but ill add my 2 cents worth

1) Other than the cool factor, what use is there for hams in the Ghz bands? are hams going to build their own ltr networks? there is some aprs usage on 2M, but most data modes are on hf. Yes, some ethusiests love rain scatter, etc. in those bands, but there does not seem much need for Ghz bands, but forgive my ignorance.

2) I am one those who has an active license but is not active. Minnesota is one of five states where a ham license is required to possess a scanner in a vehicle. Due to my very introverted personality, i do not feel the need to transmit even though i do enjoy listening to the nets, and i am a millennial as well.

 

[mmckenna]

There's two different discussions going here but ill add my 2 cents worth

1) Other than the cool factor, what use is there for hams in the Ghz bands? are hams going to build their own ltr networks? there is some aprs usage on 2M, but most data modes are on hf. Yes, some ethusiests love rain scatter, etc. in those bands, but there does not seem much need for Ghz bands, but forgive my ignorance.

There are some that have set up mesh networks to run private data networks. I've got a retired co-worker that has been doing that for remote fire lookout cameras, etc. But this stuff is all commercial off the shelf running modified firmware. Nothing that couldn't be done under Part 15.

2) I am one those who has an active license but is not active. Minnesota is one of five states where a ham license is required to possess a scanner in a vehicle. Due to my very introverted personality, i do not feel the need to transmit even though i do enjoy listening to the nets, and i am a millennial as well.

Nothing wrong with that. I have two hams that work for me. One wanted a small receiver and ended up purchasing a Yaesu, and figured since it had TX capability, it would be worthwhile to be able to transmit if he wanted to. The other one got his license for kicks, has a Baofeng, and that's about it.

 

[bill4long]

How many of those are active and use the bands regularly? Just because the licenses are being issued doesn't mean that people are actually using them.

Dunno. I haven't done a poll. ARRL claims 160k members. 7000+ are foreign hams. Some are probably "life" members who are no longer active. ARRL estimate in 2011 was two million active hams world wide. (Dunno how accurate that is now.) I suspect that preppers, and others that didn't get a license for frequent use, do not join the ARRL. Icom has sold over 30,000 IC-7300 (worldwide) in the last few years, so I would guess there's at least that many people using HF regularly around the world.

I've been a ham for 39 years, I work 80m thru 70cm, DMR, Fusion, and local FM regularly. Ham radio doesn't seem dead to me. HF band conditions have bottomed out, but I suspect when sunspot cycle 25 heats up, HF will be a flurry of activity again.

 

[alcahuete]

How many of those are active and use the bands regularly? Just because the licenses are being issued doesn't mean that people are actually using them.

Dunno. I haven't done a poll. ARRL claims 160k members. 7000+ are foreign hams. Some are probably "life" members who are no longer active. ARRL estimate in 2011 was two million active hams world wide. (Dunno how accurate that is now.)

About 80,000 hams in the US were active enough to get a digital ID of some sort (DMR, NXDN, etc.) over the last few years. Some of those are duplicates, so probably about 75,000 realistically. Doesn't mean they ever used the radio, but at least they're active enough to still be at least somewhat involved in amateur radio. There are probably 150,000-200,000 people who use HF somewhat regularly. My guess would be 25-30% of the total licensed hams in the US are actually somewhat active. Just a guess, of course.

 

[W5lz]

Could they 'sunset' ham radio? Yes they could. But it would be a -lot- of trouble I don't think 'they' are willing to go to to do it.