From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!floyd!vax135!ariel!houti!hogpc!houxz!ihnp4!ixn5c!inuxc!pur-ee!mahler
Newsgroups: net.ham-radio
Title: Re: John Gilmore"s comments on No-code
Article-I.D.: pur-ee.835
Posted: Thu Mar 10 09:21:45 1983
Received: Fri Mar 11 08:47:48 1983
References: iwsl2.154 eagle.818


After reading Mr. Gilmore's open letter to the FCC serveral thoughts come
to mind.  For brevity they are enumerated below:

1) There should be a NO-CODE license, BUT I don't consider it a canidate
	as a class of 
	as a class of AMATEUR RADIO SERVICE.  I would be happy for the
	NO-CODE folks to have a separate frequency allocation.  

2) NO-CODE is supposed to bring on the air a number of people with "great"
	contributions and those who can bring those ideas to life.  Can
	5 WPM code be a significant hurdle to an "interested" person, if
	it is maybe the person isn't that intereseted.  Mr. Gilmore by
	his addmission lost interest quickly.  

3) John, your talking in this forum to ALOT of software folks.  I don't
	think its a great discovery that current RTTY software is very
	primative.  It was designed to be upward compatable with other
	amateurs old equipment.  Not every one can
	run right out and by a computer,  although that time is getting
	very close.  Remember its amateur RADIO, -NOT- amateur COMPUTER.

4) I am concerned about your statement that your machine will retry, and
	retry, and retry if the conditions are poor.  Sure you can put
	in retry counts ... but what if I am trying to handle priority
	traffic on that frequency ... will your system go off the air 
	at my request ... so I can work the priority traffic your station
	can not hear.  What do you think will happen the first time a
	life is lost because a digital station did not QRT (thats stop
	transmitting).

5) I want a digital world wide computer network, but not at the expense
	 of the amateur radio service.  

-- Steve N9DRR