neihart@smu.UUCP (07/20/84)
#N:smu:13200006:000:968 smu!neihart Jul 20 12:25:00 1984 Why do so many hams consider simplex patches to be illegal? Why, I even saw a spot in QST which indicated they were considering not printing any more ads for the devices because of their questionability. Since Dallas ham radio stores have been barred from selling the patches, if QST quits advertising them, I would most likely have to fly to the middle of Kansas or somewhere to buy one! What is the difference between a simplex patch and a repeater patch, besides the duplexity? The nature of the conversation dictates the patch's legality. The argument that simplex patches would compete against Bell's mobile phone service is absurd, since hams don't get licenses merely to get them revoked for calling businesses on patches, and businessmen don't purchase mobile phones merely for pleasure. Will someone please enlighten me to the reason why these patches are considered illegal. Carl Neihart, KE5BX Southern Methodist University Dallas, Texas
karn@mouton.UUCP (07/22/84)
This topic was brought up just this afternoon at the ARRL National Convention in New York. Ray Kowalski's (of the FCC) first answer was "don't ask". He then went into a very strong series of comments that if we're not careful, "simplex autopatches will end amateur radio as we know it". Read into this what you will. I think there are several issues involved: 1. Technical legality under existing rules (need for separate control link via wire or 220 mhz radio or above, control operator monitoring) 2. The potential for abuse (business calls, etc). In my (KA9Q) opinion, there really isn't any difference between simplex and duplex autopatches, but the latter have raised a number of grey-area issues over the past ten years, and simplex autopatches are likely to force the issues because "everybody will have one". Phil
wmartin@brl-tgr.ARPA (Will Martin ) (07/23/84)
For those of us who are bewildered... Would someone post an explanation of what a "simplex autopatch" is and why it is different from the autopatch tie-ins to telco lines commonly found on repeaters (is this latter what you mean by "duplex autopatch")? I thought that "simplex" meant "using only one frequency", and that "duplex" meant "using two frequencies -- one for transmitting and one for receiving". I fail to see how this distinction could make the basis for a "religious war" about the propriety of autopatching. What difference does the technical detail of the implementation method make? If autopatching is good, use whatever it takes to do it. If it is bad, it doesn't matter how it is done, does it? Confused, Will
socci.PA@XEROX.ARPA (07/24/84)
Well, I've been trying to avoid getting dragged into these discussions, but I guess I've finally succumbed . . . There are two issues here (maybe three). Forgive me if I don't pull punches. First, the telephone company doesn't like hams to use patches on the air at all, unless its the old manual inconvenient kind, because it cuts into their ever increasing revenues. Autopatches make it easy to make phone calls from whereever you are, without requiring a human being to run the patch. They would rather have you pay $200/month + for the unavailable mobile phone service. Therefore, the FCC, in its formerly more active days, made grumbling noises about making autopatches illegal. Nowadays this issue seems to have died down. Secondly, there is an FCC rule stating that amateur radio should not be used for commercial purposes. There's always a lot of arguing as to what this means exactly, although there are obvious examples of violation of this rule. (Actually, I think this is a good rule, because it keeps buisinesses from soaking up the ham spectrum with their traffic. They have their own bands already.) The argument against autopatches with respect to this rule is that they encourage violation of this rule because you can readily tie into a buisiness (i.e. call them on the phone). I think its absurd to make something illegal because it provides an opportunity to break a law - we should make cars illegal according to that argument, since the existence of cars makes it easy to drive while drunk! So those are the two major forces opposing autopatches in general. The simplex versus duplex problem is due to the FCC rule that an unattended station must be under positive control of the operator at all times. There is even something in the rules that says the machine must be controlled by another receiver on another band, and if I'm not mistaken, the receiver has to be on a higher band than the original one ( I could be wrong, I'd have to look it up). Well, most patches on repeaters are automatically OK if the repeater operator is running his repeater legally, since he supposedly has control over his machine at all times. The problem with simplex patches is that they usually operate on one band only, have no control receiver. The Novax II has a duplex operation mode, where you could do something like take a mobile rig and split it along Rx/Tx lines, and run it as a completely duplex patch, but the problem is the same. Of course, one might ask concerning a regular repeater system, if someone is using the autopatch for a call, and the repeater normally depends upon the phone for positive control, isn't the repeater uncontrolled while the patch is being made? Yes, unless there is a seperate control receiver on a different band. (I never understood the different band argument - does it depend on the fact that a jammer is not likely to own rigs on two different bands? Or are they trying to eliminate cross interference at the site?) Well, I think that we should follow the spirit of the law, which is 1) to keep buisiness activities, including our own, off the air so that the ham bands don't become a copy of the commercial bands; 2) Make sure we maintain reasonable control over our patches and repeaters, so they don't become a nuisance to the rest of the ham community. I don't recall any FCC regulation saying "thou shalt not cause phone company profits to decline due to use of amateur radio". I don't think the phone company should regulate the content or origin of my usage of the line I rent from them. /Vance Socci N6FXE