What's allowed on our bands?

Foundations of Amateur Radio

Recently there was a discussion on social media about the legality of various types of transmissions. Before I get into the specifics, it's worth looking at some of the rules around this. I will point out that this isn't exhaustive, but it gives you an idea of what I'm talking about.

In Australia, the rules about this are encapsulated in the Radiocommunications Licence Conditions Determination, referred to as the LCD. It essentially says that you must not operate an amateur station to transmit signals that are encoded for the purpose of obscuring the meaning of the signals, except for amateur satellite and repeater command and control purposes or emergency service operation and training.

In the United States, the rules are covered under the FCC rules, Part 97 Amateur Radio Service. It says that you may transmit using a digital code who's technical characteristics have been documented publicly. It goes on to prevent such transmissions for anyone communicating with a country that doesn't have an agreement with the United States. It also states that using unspecified digital codes must not be transmitted for the purpose of obscuring the meaning of any communication and if it's deemed necessary, you must maintain a record, convertible to the original information, of all digital communications transmitted.

In the United Kingdom, the amateur terms say that the licensee may use codes and abbreviations for communications as long as they do not obscure or confuse the meaning of the message and messages shall not be encrypted for the purpose of rendering the message unintelligible to other radio spectrum users, except for during emergencies or if used by various emergency or government departments.

Just by looking at three different sets of rules we can already tell that law makers across the globe have different ideas of what's allowed and what isn't. I will point out that the rules in the United States are much more prescriptive than those in Australia or the United Kingdom. I'll leave it to lawyers to determine which of the rules is more effective and what their actual effect is on our global amateur community.

Let's get back to the original question. What's allowed?

The purpose of obscuring the meaning of the message is essentially not allowed. What happens if that's a beneficial side-effect? Is that allowed?

For example, let's imagine that I have a new mode that is more efficient than any other mode in getting information between point A and point B. It does this by transmitting a single number, which is simply sent and received, it could even be done with Morse code.

Station A knows what the message means and Station B also knows what it means. How they come to a common understanding of the message is something I'll leave to your imagination, but is this kind of transmission in violation of the idea of obscuring the meaning of the message, if all we're doing is making communications faster?

Let's say that we have a public web-site that links those numbers we've exchanged to a more meaningful message. Let's say that Station A uploads an image to this website, and then sends an ID number of that image to Station B, which then goes to the same website and looks up that ID and sees the image. Bingo, transmission complete. Message exchanged. It's all public, there's no intent to obscure the meaning, everyone happy. In case you're wondering, I've just described how Hybrid EasyPal works.

What happens if I require a password to access the website to see which file was intended for me? Have I just obscured the meaning of the message? Note that I'm talking about two stations exchanging a unique identifier of some sort, that both stations have agreed on, so they can communicate via a password protected website using amateur radio.

That appears to be in violation of the amateur radio rules for all three countries.

It gets better.

What if I build a gadget that makes squeaky noises and knows how to receive them? Station A plugs their microphone into the gadget and talks into it. The gadget makes squeaky noises and those are transmitted. Station B has the same gadget, which understands squeaky noises and makes it into perfect audio. The purpose is to get information between the two stations, no intent to obscure the message, right?

What if I only make two of these gadgets?

The purpose isn't to obscure, but the outcome is that the messages are actually obscured. At this point we get lawyers involved who argue both sides. Your honour, I wasn't trying to hide my communications, I was just making them more efficient.

Clearly this isn't what our hobby is about. It's about exchanging information, un-obscured information, between stations that want to talk to each other.

If the intent is to make apples, but the outcome is that you're making pears, you're making pears.

I'm Onno VK6FLAB