ARWatch is intended to be a resource and information center for amateur radio operators, specializing in information and issues that are not covered, or not given much focus by traditional amateur radio information resources. This is to be accomplished by hosting Watches activated and moderated by interested, active amateurs.
At this writing, there are onair problems with WinLink2000 interference, intruders on 10 meters, and a Canadian ham who misbehaves. All of these onair issues, and many more like them may be worthy of a special Watch, and a clearing house that separates fact from hype or rumor. Toward this goal, ARWatch includes Carl Sagan's Baloney Detection Kit among its guiding resources, along with Part97 and The Amateurs Code.
Regulatory issues and events also bear a special watch. If not for the vigilance of a few amateurs, the ARRL bandwidth segmentation proposal would have gone through virtually unopposed since at first, very few amateurs were aware of what the ARRL was up to. When the light of day was shown upon this proposal and its origins, hundreds and hundreds of comments poured into the FCC, over 85% of which calling for it to be denied. In response to this grass roots opposition, the ARRL withdrew the proposal.
Outfits like the ARRL and agencies like the FCC do publish information, but it often gets lost in the shuffle and can sometimes be buried on purpose so that it can be said to have been 'published' even though very few are ever likely to see it. For this reason, permanent ARRL, DHS, Congressional and FCC watches would be a good foundation for the more volatile onair interference watches and bad operator watches which will tend to come and go as those situations change.
ARWatch is the logical next step after the WinLink-Watch pages I created last year, specifically dedicated to watching, recording, and reporting WinLink2000 interference events. While setting up and operating WinLink-Watch, it occurred to me that WinLink was only one of a number of things that bear an active watch because of the impact they may have upon the hobby if allowed to go on without remark or notice.
In discussions that followed at QRZ.Com, several amateurs made the same observation, that there were a number of problems which really deserved the same kind of focused activism that I have been applying to WinLink interference.
It is intended that ARWatch will be a place to go in order to share or gather information about ongoing issues that affect all amateur radio operators, and also a place where any amateur can go to find out - how to find out for ourselves!
© 2007 Amateur Radio Watch
