07/29/2016
The FCC has proposed to revise the Amateur Service Part 97 rules in response to
the ARRL's so-called "Symbol Rate" Petition for Rule Making (RM-11708[1]),
filed in late 2013, and it has invited comments on its recommended changes. The
Notice of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM[2]) in WT Docket 16-239, released on July
28, had been making the rounds at the FCC since May. ARRL had asked the FCC to
change the Part 97 rules to delete the symbol rate limits in ?97.307(f) and
replace it with a maximum bandwidth for data emissions of 2.8 kHz on amateur
frequencies below 29.7 MHz.
"[W]e believe that the public interest may be served by revising the Amateur
Service rules to eliminate the current baud rate limitations for data
emissions, consistent with ARRL's Petition, to allow Amateur Service licensees
to use modern digital emissions, thereby furthering the purposes of the Amateur
Service and enhancing the usefulness of the service," the FCC said in its NPRM.
"We do not, however, propose a bandwidth limitation for data emissions in the
MF and HF bands to replace the baud rate limitations," the NPRM concluded,
"because the rules' current approach for limiting bandwidth use by amateur
stations using one of the specified digital codes to encode the signal being
transmitted appears sufficient to ensure that general access to the band by
licensees in the Amateur Service does not become unduly impaired."
Under the current rules, "specified digital codes" in Part 97 may be used with
a symbol rate that does not exceed 300 baud for frequencies below 28 MHz, with
the exception of 60 meters, and 1200 baud in the 10 meter band. The baud rate
limits were adopted in 1980, when the FCC amended Part 97 to specify ASCII as a
permissible digital code.
Comments in the proceeding will be due 60 days after the date that the NPRM
appears in the Federal Register.
[1] https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/filing/6017477458/document/7520958815
[2] https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-16-96A1.pdf
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