Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxl!houxm!houxz!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!tektronix!hplabs!sri-unix!socci.PA@XEROX.ARPA
From: socci.PA@XEROX.ARPA
Newsgroups: net.ham-radio
Subject: Re: Simplex patches - (nf)
Message-ID: <369@sri-arpa.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 24-Jul-84 12:35:21 EDT
Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.369
Posted: Tue Jul 24 12:35:21 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 27-Jul-84 08:27:19 EDT
Lines: 63

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