A modest, already-researched fix to Technician HF privileges has been sitting at the FCC since 2018—real, ready, and, despite years of advocacy, still stuck in the queue. I think it’s worth pushing across the line now, while the Commission’s attention is already open on related amateur radio rules. It also leaves one gap standing, and ARRL’s own stated reason for leaving it there is worth sitting with.
…RM-11828 leaves it completely closed to Technicians, on every mode, and that’s not something the petition’s authors overlooked. ARRL even says so directly, in the petition’s own language: the proposal is designed, in part, to “provide an improved incentive for entry-level licensees to increase technical self-training and pursue higher license class achievement.” Read plainly, that’s an acknowledgment that some privileges need to stay withheld on purpose, because withholding them is what generates the pressure to upgrade. Twenty meters is the specific privilege ARRL chose to keep withheld…
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