(As Prepared for Delivery)

**The Role of Amateur Radio in the New Century**

Remarks by

Dale N. Hatfield (W0IFO)

Chief, Office on Engineering and Technology

Federal Communications Commission

at

**AMRAD's 25^th^ Anniversary Dinner**

## Falls Church, VA

June 17, 2000

> Thank you very much for the nice introduction.

I am very pleased to be able to speak to you this evening on the topic
of the role of amateur radio in the new century. I am very pleased to be
here for a number of reasons.

First, I am very pleased because it is both your 25^th^ anniversary and
your first anniversary dinner held in the new century. That seems like a
particularly good time to reflect on the future of the amateur radio
service and I am flattered that you have asked me to do so.

Second, I am very pleased because I have especially fond thoughts about
the service because of the pivotal role that amateur radio -- and
individual amateur operators \-- hams \-- played in my own career. As I
will explain in more detail in a moment, I would not be in my current
position if it had not been for the help of some hams back when I was a
teenager about 50 years ago.

Third, I regard it as a particular honor to be asked to address an
amateur radio group that emphasizes experimentation and the more
technical aspects of amateur radio. Again, as I will indicate in more
detail in a few minutes, I believe that experimentation and
contributions to the state of the art in the radio field are a major
part of the justification for maintaining spectrum allocations for the
service in the face of increased demands by commercial and other
interests.

I would like to divide the remainder of my remarks into five parts.

-   *First*, I will briefly \-- very briefly \-- talk about my personal
    involvement in amateur radio.

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-   *Second*, I will briefly describe the role of the Office on
    Engineering and Technology at the Federal Communications Commission
    so that you will have a better idea of the basis for my remarks.

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-   *Third*, speaking from that perspective, I will talk about the
    growing scarcity \-- and hence economic value \-- of the radio
    spectrum and how that growing scarcity will inevitably put pressure
    on amateur allocations.

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-   *Fourth*, I will talk about the important role that the amateur
    radio service has played in the past and \-- going to the basic
    topic I have been asked to address \-- what the amateur service can
    do to in the future to justify its spectrum allocations on both a
    national and international basis.

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-   *Fifth*, and finally, I will talk about a proceeding we recently
    launched at the Commission -- a proceeding dealing with Software
    Defined Radios.

Before I continue, I need to add the standard disclaimer that my remarks
here this evening represent my own views and they may not necessarily
reflect the views of the Commission, any individual Commissioner, or any
other staff member.

**Background in Amateur Radio**

My own involvement in amateur radio began in my early teens, when my
father bought me a used Hallicrafters S-38B shortwave receiver. He and
his brother \-- my uncle \-- had tinkered with crystal sets when they
were kids and he somehow sensed that I might find radio interesting as
well. I connected that receiver to piece of antenna wire hung out of my
bedroom window and soon I heard a ham radio operator in Morocco calling
CQ in the 20 meter amateur band. From that moment I was hooked on radio
communications.

Two local hams who lived near me \-- this was in Dayton, Ohio in the
early 1950s \-- helped me get my first license (WN8NGG) and helped me
build my first transmitter. These two hams were electrical engineers
that were employed at Wright-Patterson Airforce Base near Dayton. It was
their interest that led me into electrical engineering as a vocation and
ultimately to a job at the government\'s old Central Radio Propagation
Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado. I won\'t bore you with the details, but
that first, entry-level job eventually led me to the position I hold
today. Accordingly, I will forever be in the debt of those two hams who
so unselfishly supported my passion for radio.

**Role of the Office of Engineering and Technology**

As most of you may know, the FCC is organized into Bureaus and Offices.
Generally speaking, the bureaus \-- the Common Carrier Bureau, the
Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, the Mass Media Bureau, the Cable
Services Bureau, and the International Bureau \-- have the \"line\" or
operating responsibility in terms of the Commission\'s regulation of
particular segments of the telecommunications industry. For example, the
Wireless Telecommunications Bureau \-- under the excellent leadership of
my colleague, Tom Sugrue \-- has the responsibility for the Amateur
Radio Service. The offices \-- such as the Office of the General Counsel
and the Office of Plans and Policy \-- provide support and advice to the
operating bureaus and to the five member Commission itself.

Reflecting that rough division, the office that I now head, the Office
of Engineering and Technology, provides technical advice to other
bureaus and offices and to the Chairman and other Commissioners. In
addition, however, our office has the responsibility for administering
specific parts of the Commission\'s rules, namely, Parts 2, 5, 15, and
18. Part 2 of the rules contains the Table of Frequency Allocations.
That is, while the individual bureaus have primary responsibility for
developing and recommending specific service rules, we, in OET, have the
responsibility for general allocation matters. We also issue
experimental licenses under Part 5 of the Commission\'s rules. In
addition, we administer Part 15 of the Commission\'s rules dealing with
unlicensed devices as well as Part 18, which deals with certain
industrial, scientific and medical equipment. Finally, we are
responsible for the Commission\'s equipment authorization program. Much
of that work is done at our laboratory facilities in Laurel, Maryland.

**Growing Demand for Spectrum**

The management of the radio spectrum resource is an extremely important
part of telecommunications policy and regulation. As you all know so
well, radio spectrum is an increasingly scarce natural resource. We
simply do not have enough spectrum to give everyone all they want. This
increasing demand is being propelled by a host of developments:

-   the growing shift of our economy towards the service sector,

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-   the increasing mobility of our workforce,

-   the convenience and increased efficiency produced by mobile/portable
    communications

-   the increasing performance and falling cost of wireless devices

-   the increasing requirements for public safety and for national
    defense systems, and

-   the dramatically growing interest in accessing the Internet on a
    wireless basis.

Hence, the allocation of spectrum for particular uses and the
development of specific technical and service rules governing those
allocations is a crucial determinant of telecommunications industry
structure and performance. Even more importantly, it is critical to the
performance of our public institutions that are devoted to certain
scientific pursuits, such as radio astronomy, to the safety of life and
property, and to the national defense.

As the office at the Commission that has primary responsibility for
spectrum allocation matters, we, in OET, are in a particularly good spot
to judge \-- first hand \-- the increasing demand for spectrum. Our
office is generally the first place people stop when they are seeking
new spectrum. Hardly a week goes by without someone stopping in my
office or filing a petition asking that spectrum be allocated for some
new service or that additional spectrum be allocated to an existing
service. While increased efficiency in the use of spectrum \-- through
the use of digital compression techniques, more efficient modulation and
greater frequency reuse, for example \-- can offset some of this
increased demand, increased scarcity is a very real concern. This
scarcity is exemplified by increasingly contentious debates over
spectrum sharing arrangements and by the amounts bid in auctions for
radio licenses. The \$35 [billion]{.underline} bid in the recent Third
Generation Cellular auctions in the United Kingdom provides very clear
evidence of the increasing value of spectrum.

Our Chairman \-- FCC Chairman, Bill Kennard \-- has recently called
attention to the potential for a \"spectrum drought\", especially in the
valuable range below about 3 GHz. Under the leadership of the Chairman,
and with solid support of Commissioner Susan Ness \-- who has always
been intensely interested in spectrum issues, we have put forth a number
of proposals and undertaken a number of initiatives that would allow
more uses and users of this national and international resource. One of
these initiatives relates to Software Defined Radios \-- a topic which I
will return to briefly near the end of my remarks. The point that I want
to emphasize here, however, is that, in thinking about the role of
Amateur Radio in the new century, we must think about it in the context
of increasing pressure on the underlying spectrum resource.

**Future of the Amateur Service**

Turning now to the future, it seems to me that -- given the increased
pressure on the underlying resource from commercial and other
non-commercial uses \-- the key issue for the amateur service is
maintaining access to an adequate amount of spectrum. Let me make it
absolutely clear that, in raising the spectrum issue, I am not
suggesting that there is any immediate threat to existing amateur
allocations. I am simply pointing out the reality of the situation. The
rapidly growing demand for spectrum coupled with the increased
visibility of its economic value due to auctions makes it almost
inevitable that amateurs will be under a certain amount of pressure to
justify their "free" use of this precious resource.

In the past, the amateur service has justified its spectrum allocations
by, among other ways, (1) engaging in experimentation that has advanced
the radio state-of-the-art, (2) providing emergency communications in
times of natural or man-made disasters, (3) providing trained radio
operators in times of national emergencies, (4) encouraging
international cooperation and goodwill by allowing direct communications
between and among people on an international basis and (5) as in my
case, providing an important educational outlet for people interested in
the more technical aspects of radio communications. While the relative
importance of some of these ways has obviously changed because of
marketplace, technological and other developments, they remain valid
today. The important thing is that they actually be carried out. Or, to
use a bit of slang, it seems to me that it will be even more important
for all segments of the amateur community to "walk the walk" not just
"talk the talk."

Another potentially important area deals with how efficiently one uses
the spectrum. We could probably discuss at some length the proper
measure of spectrum efficiency but for our purposes here this evening it
might be simply the number of simultaneous conversations that can be
accommodated in a given amount of spectrum in a particular geographic
area. In the commercial sectors, where organizations pay for their use
of the spectrum, there is a significant economic incentive to use the
resource efficiently -- to spread costs over as many users as possible
while maintaining good quality service. That is, there is a strong
incentive to develop and adopt more spectrally efficient technology. For
example, by adopting various digital techniques, commercial mobile radio
service providers (e.g., cellular and PCS) have been able to
dramatically increase their capacity compared to the original analog
technology. Similarly, when the broadcast industry has completed its
transition to digital television, we will be able to reclaim a
substantial amount of spectrum for other uses.

I recognize that, in the past, hams have also adopted more spectrally
efficient technologies -- for example, by migrating from double-sideband
amplitude modulation to single-sideband modulation and, more recently,
by shifting to more efficient modulation for text -- TTY -- modes. I
would urge you to continue shifting towards more spectrally efficient
communications techniques -- especially digital techniques. Such a shift
has a number of benefits:

-   First of all, it demonstrates to policymakers and regulators that
    you are good stewards of the public's airwaves even without direct
    economic incentives.

-   Second, by using what you have efficiently, it strengthens your case
    when you need to ask for additional spectrum.

-   Third, by allowing more users to access the available allocations
    simultaneously, it improves the amateur experience and ultimately
    increases the attractiveness of the service to new and old users
    alike.

-   Fourth, it provides the opportunity or "headroom" for increases in
    data rates to more closely match those available on wireline
    networks and, in the future, on commercial wireless networks as
    well.

-   Fifth, as the rest of the telecommunications world makes the
    transition to digital techniques -- and there are very few
    exceptions to that trend -- the amateur service will look antiquated
    if it is not making progress in that direction as well.

So looking to the future of the amateur radio service in the new
century, I would urge you to continue your traditional role in public
service by being prepared for and providing communications in times of
emergencies, conducting experiments, providing training in radio
communications, and encouraging international comity. But I would also
urge you to focus particular attention \-- for the reasons I just
mentioned \-- on experimentation with digital techniques that are
capable of squeezing more \"bits per second per Hertz of bandwidth\" out
of the increasingly valuable radio spectrum resource.

**Software Defined Radios**

I am rapidly running out of time but before I close I would like to talk
about one additional topic that, as it turns out, may help enable some
of the experimentation with digital techniques that I just advocated.
The topic, as I mentioned at the outset of my remarks, is Software
Defined Radios. Software defined radios \-- or software radios or
software programmable radios as they are sometimes called \-- can be
described as radios that are implemented in digital signal processors
with functions defined in software. In other words the signals are
generated in \-- or converted to \-- the digital format and the
necessary processing \-- for example, modulation and demodulation \-- is
done in software on a common platform.

From what I have been told, such radios could have a host of advantages:

*●One*, they would allow a common radio to accommodate a host of
different standards and thereby help alleviate some of the problems that
we have had with the creation of different standards in the wireless
field.

●*Two*, they would facilitate interoperability among different types of
radio systems, when for example, a large number of different emergency
groups arrive at the scene of a major disaster.

●*Three*, they would allow a manufacturer to develop different radios
but on a common hardware platform. In other words, rather than
manufacture and carry in inventory several different radios, the
manufacturer could achieve economies of scale in the production of a
common hardware platform, but wait until the product is about to be
shipped before loading the software to create a specific type of device.

●*Four*, they would allow the end user to update his or her radio simply
by getting a software update \-- just like an end user gets updated
software for a Personal Computer today. In fact, one could even envision
a situation where one could get software updates right off of the
Internet or over-the-air.

*●Five*, it is possible that a manufacturer could sell a bare-bones
hardware platform to which third party providers or end users --
including hams \-- could supply software to create custom radio systems.
Certainly we have seen similar developments in the computer field and in
other sectors of the telecommunications industry.

*●Six*, it is even possible to imagine a radio that could adapt its
characteristics to fit the interference environment and user needs on a
more-or-less real time basis. For example, the radio could maximize its
use of bandwidth in areas where the spectrum is not congested while
conserving bandwidth or going to more robust modulation in areas where
interference is heavy and/or propagation conditions are particularly
difficult.

Indeed, [if]{.underline} we can solve some of the difficult regulatory
issues involved, it is even possible to envision Software Defined Radios
as a means of facilitating a new era of amateur experimentation. One
intriguing possibility is that it could enable hams without skills
and/or interest in hardware construction to build and experiment with
new systems by writing new code. It might also allow the rapid sharing
of new modulation techniques and receiver designs through electronic
publication of the implementing software. This could stimulate a whole
new generation of amateur innovation that not only includes the more
spectrally efficient systems I mentioned earlier, but also radios that
could adapt to their environment as well.

In many ways, Software Defined Radios represent a final merger of the
radio communications and computer fields. Viewed from that perspective,
this technological development even has the potential of attracting back
to the hobby some of the people who have shifted their interest to
computer technology. Because of this potential to advance the service in
fundamental ways, I would urge amateur groups to participate actively in
our proceeding.

# Concluding Thoughts

Let me conclude by saying that I believe that the future of the amateur
service is a bright one. It is one where technological advances such as
Software Defined Radios can enable the ham community to continue its
proud tradition of innovation while demonstrating its commitment to the
efficient use of the spectrum resource. Certainly your organization --
AMRAD -- is in a particular good position to encourage the
experimentation that will lead to such innovations and I strongly
commend you for your leadership efforts in that direction in the past.

Thank you very much.