I've been chewing on this one for a while now, and I'm afraid that my response to the question will not please some.
I dare to suggest to you and the group that for several reasons,
advancements in Ham radio tend to be rather slow. The hobby, in my
observation, tends to be slow to adopt change. An extra step in that
process is when there's been a regulatory roadblock.
Consider, as an example, that SSB came on the scene in 1933, but the
ARRL didn't get into it (beyond the usual committees study of the mode)
until 1947 when Byron Goodman started his QST column, “On the Air with
Single Sideband”. And the first WAC/WAS awards in SSB went out in 1956.
But we're still only talking about a few hundred stations with the
ability. Despite this, the (rather heated) back and forth between the
SSB crowd and the AM boys continued until well into the 1960's. In the
end, the only thing that stopped those arguments was the then new
argument over the value of "incentive licensing". ... which I note the
old timers of today arguing FOR, while a goodly number of them were dead
set against THAT change in the day.
So in the end, SSB took over 30 years to become really accepted.
Resistance to change. The pattern of this is well-established.
Other examples.... No code tickets. DIgi modes. I could give more, but you get the picture, I'm sure.
We're about to see it again, with this new regulation and the standards
that will eventually come from it. What will those modes be? I suggest
the ones who make that happen... the ones that will make that decision,
will be the early adoptors and creators of modes that can be used in the
new bandwidth.... with around half the ham radio population dragging
their heels as they usually have historically.
So what will you and I get out of the new regs? I fear we won't live long enough to see what becomes of them.
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