<div dir="ltr"><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" style="box-sizing:border-box;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:medium"><tbody style="box-sizing:border-box"><tr style="box-sizing:border-box"><td style="box-sizing:border-box"><div id="gmail-story" style="box-sizing:border-box;width:618.4px;font-size:16px;height:auto;float:left"><h1 style="box-sizing:border-box;font-size:16pt">Hams try to re-carve the amateur radio spectrum in fight over open or encoded broadcasts</h1>The technology website The Register reports: Radio enthusiasts argue signals must travel in the open, for the sake of national security<p style="box-sizing:border-box">Some people have been using ham radio frequencies for communication that&#39;s <a target="_blank" href="https://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/05/01/anonymous_to_world_go_pirate_radio_for_datacomms/" style="box-sizing:border-box;color:rgb(0,51,102);text-decoration-line:none">encrypted</a> or difficult to decipher and others argue that&#39;s a threat to national security and a violation of the spirit and rules of amateur radio. Really, it&#39;s a fight over whether the amateur radio spectrum remains a hobbyist space or develops as a medium for data traffic.</p><p style="box-sizing:border-box">In <a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="https://ecfsapi.fcc.gov/file/1040322516387/FCC%20Letter%20RM%2011831%20final.pdf" style="box-sizing:border-box;color:rgb(0,51,102);text-decoration-line:none">a letter</a> [PDF] submitted earlier this week to the US Federal Communications Commission, NYU professor Theodore Rappaport, who runs the NYU Wireless research center at the NYU Tandon School of Engineering, voiced support for <a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="https://ecfsapi.fcc.gov/file/100918881206/PETITION%20FOR%20RULEMAKING.pdf" style="box-sizing:border-box;color:rgb(0,51,102);text-decoration-line:none">RM-11831</a> [PDF], a proposed radio rule revision that, among other things, would require radio transmissions be open to public scrutiny.</p><p style="box-sizing:border-box">&quot;RM-11831 allows ACDS [Automatically Controlled Digital Stations] to continue to operate in ham radio, but simply requires them to use openly decodable transmissions in compliance with FCC rules,&quot; Rappaport says.</p><p style="box-sizing:border-box">That means difficult-to-decipher, proprietary automatic repeat query (ARQ) traffic, using radio signal modulation modes like Pactor 3, WINMOR, STANAG, and ARDOP would have to be open source or make easy decoding available to ham radio operators who wish to examine the traffic.</p><p style="box-sizing:border-box"><a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/47/97.113" style="box-sizing:border-box;color:rgb(0,51,102);text-decoration-line:none">Federal rules</a> ban amateur radio stations from transmitting &quot;messages encoded for the purpose of obscuring their meaning,&quot; with some exceptions. Despite this, evolving technology has given rise to a number of services that, some argue, violate these rules, such as <a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="https://winlink.org/" style="box-sizing:border-box;color:rgb(0,51,102);text-decoration-line:none">Winlink</a> and D-Star.</p><p style="box-sizing:border-box">If the rule change is adopted, it might mean the end of these services, or reduced functionality, and might make it harder for innovative services like <a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="https://hackaday.io/project/164092-npr-new-packet-radio" style="box-sizing:border-box;color:rgb(0,51,102);text-decoration-line:none">New Packet Radio</a> to emerge.</p><p style="box-sizing:border-box">Read the full The Register article:<br style="box-sizing:border-box"><a href="https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/04/05/amateur_radio_spectrum/" target="_blank" style="box-sizing:border-box;color:rgb(0,51,102);text-decoration-line:none">https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/04/05/amateur_radio_spectrum/</a></p></div></td></tr></tbody></table></div>