[chociej]

To get one of the big things out of the way: bandwidth. The FCC don't want anyone taking up big chunks of spectrum without using a license or service appropriate to that use. Notably, they don't want a few users to be able to chew up entire bands.

But there's a philosophical part to the discussion also. The tradeoff goes like this: hams get some really nice spectrum assignments, low fees, self-regulation, experimental modes and techniques, etc. In exchange, they can't use the amateur radio service commercially or for non-personal aims, and specifically they are expected to focus mostly on learning, community interaction, public service, experimentation, and so on. They also want amateur modes to be somewhat approachable, i.e. not requiring exotic or expensive hardware, necessarily.

Should an operator wish to use the radio spectrum for commercial or highly productive use, especially one requiring significant bandwidth, secrecy, exclusivity, etc, they are expected to use a different license / service more appropriate to those needs.

Basically:

Tinkering, chit-chat, community service, narrow bandwidths => amateur radio

Anything else => get a different license

To that end it was long the FCC's stance that high symbol rates sort of implied that you're going outside the purposes of the amateur radio service. With digital communication having developed as much as it has, though, it's reasonable that hams want to be able to do more interesting things with digital modes, which generally means higher symbol rates.

[leephillips]

An interesting twist to the regulations is that you're not allowed to use ham radio as a substitute for cell service. I never quite understood this rule, nor how it was to be enforced; but it would seem to place some limits on the permissible chit-chat.

Also: no encryption.

[VLM]

> substitute for cell service

47 CFR 97.113 Prohibited transmissions, (a) No amateur station shall transmit: (5) Communications, on a regular basis, which could reasonably be furnished alternatively through other radio services.

The FCC has a perfectly good part 22 service for cell phones.

Or FCC part 73 regulates "old fashioned broadcast radio"

Per 97.1 (a) thru (e) explain the purpose of amateur radio but it boils down to something like a national park, sorta. The purpose of the service is NOT to avoid existing regulation.

"on a regular basis" means experiment as much as possible, for free, non-professionally, as a ham, but if you try to set up a formal cell phone company business for the public just like AT&T, and try to tell the FCC you prefer being regulated under part 97 and pay only $35 for a license, the FCC will be very very very mad at you, wave 47 cfr 97.113(a)(5) at you, then regulate you under part 22.

The FCC has nothing against people building broadcast radio services; but if you try to demand they regulate your public broadcast FM radio service under part 97 rules, the FCC is warning you they will absolutely insist on regulating and charging you under part 73 rules...

[leephillips]

> Communications, on a regular basis, which could reasonably be furnished alternatively through other radio services.

I guess this was the bit I had in mind. It means that one can’t use amateur radio for what a cell phone is normally used for, doesn’t it? Like calling your ham friends to make arrangements for poker night. Or is that the wrong interpretation?

[VLM]

That example is fine its not a regular basis.

Note you can run a business on a cell phone or do financial transactions or speak swear words or all kinds of things common carriers supposedly don't care about but would be banned on ham radio. Also ham radio has no SLA or mandatory 911 access like a phone. Consider... if you are a casino operator and you're trying to book hotel rooms for these guys to play poker night at your casino, that would be forbidden under part 97 because its a business and part 97 isn't for business use.

Its definitely an intent based situation. "Fooling around with radio technology while having convos of a non-commercial personal nature to promote international goodwill and gain radio operating experience" is literally what part 97 was designed for, and fits the poker game example perfectly. "We built a nationwide cellphone network but forgot to budget for FCC licensing fees so we'll reprogram to use ham radio freqs and lie to the FCC and tell them its a part 97 ham radio, while we sell it to the general public as a cell phone" would be quite stunningly illegal because it would be perfectly reasonable to operate a commercial cell phone network under existing FCC regulations for commercial cell phone providers, and its done on a regular basis by the famous big name nationwide cell phone services every day...

[poetaster]

Service. In the sense of serving!? My two FM episodes, 25 years apart, were service. Not for regulatory purposes. To those, we but poor wee pirates were, and remain.

[second--shift]

I've heard this several times about ham radio, and to me as an outsider the idea of shared access to the medium is a bit off-putting to me.

Is it possible to have two-way links "in the clear" but otherwise encoded or ciphered? Is there a regulation that says all transmissions must be in English, for example, or can I transmit in Esperanto/Navajo/hex?

[giantrobot]

You can speak whatever language you want on the air so long as you identify every ten minutes and at the end of your transmission. The ITU regulations for radio call signs cover their format however and use the Latin alphabet. Call books are also public so anyone can look up the stations and know who you are.

Speaking in shorthand to be clear and concise over the radio is fine. Even using terms of art or abbreviations is likely fine. If you're explicitly coding your communication to obfuscate its meaning you're definitely going to run afoul on the ban of encryption.

Part of the reason for no encryption on ham bands is there's precious little bandwidth available and unintelligible signals (intentionally obfuscated) are tantamount to interference. As a listener I can't reasonably tell if an encrypted signal is noise or a genuine call. I also can't reasonably receive a call sign so I can't know who is transmitting.

[userbinator]

I wonder what they think of steganography, the elephant-in-the-room of all anti-encryption debates.

[second--shift]

This is basically my question.

[jandrese]

The big limitation is no encryption. So it's only a substitute for cell service if you're ok with being on a big party line with everybody else in the vicinity.

[burnished]

Thanks for the additional context!