§ 97.1 Basis and purpose.
The rules and regulations in this part are designed to provide an amateur radio service having a fundamental purpose as expressed in the following principle
(a) Recognition and enhancement of the value of the amateur service to the public as a voluntary noncommercial communication service, particularly with respect to providing emergency communications.
Requiring little to no existing infrastructure, Winlink is the de-facto “go-to” for contingency emergency communications, worldwide, both through Amateur radio, backup for government services, and NGO critical infrastructure partners. Winlink is used widely in...
- Amateur Radio, through emergency communications organizations like ARES, RACES and many more amateur organizations around the world.
- Department of Homeland Security’s National Coordinating Center for SHared RESources (SHARES), consisting of many agencies at all levels who use Winlink: FEMA, US NORTHCOM, US State EMA and National Guards, and local county and municipal emergency management, all are using Winlink/NIMS trained and experienced amateur radio reserve volunteer communicators.
- NGO critical infrastructure partners: AT&T, FedEx, Bridgestone Disaster Response, Cisco, Salvation Army (amateur radio only), Southern Baptist Disaster Relief, the International Health Service, and many more, all use Winlink/NIMS trained and experienced amateur radio reserve volunteer communicators.
- Government services in other countries: Mexico, Canada, countries throughout Central America and the Caribbean, the UK, Australia, the Marshall Islands, Guam all using Winlink-trained and experienced amateur radio reserve volunteer communicators.
- The International Red Cross/Red Crescent: all use Winlink/NIMS trained and experienced Amateur radio reserve volunteer communicators.
- ITU sponsored amateur radio Winlink gateways in Central America and Caribbean Islands: all use Winlink/NIMS trained and experienced Amateur radio reserve volunteer communicators.
(b) Continuation and extension of the amateur's proven ability to contribute to the advancement of the radio art.
- Development of practical digital systems, software and radio modems and protocols for data transfer used extensively on the Amateur radio spectrum, and more recently adopted by government emergency services, worldwide.
- Promotes hardware and software enhancements to the digital radio art as well as emergency systems.
- Exposes new and enabling technologies that find immediate practical use.
(c) Encouragement and improvement of the amateur service through rules which provide for advancing skills in both the communication and technical phases of the art.
- The dynamics of progress and enhancements continually pushes the status quo toward enhanced infrastructure, hardware, software and regulatory environments. Operators continually train to keep pace and advance skills.
(d) Expansion of the existing reservoir within the amateur radio service of trained operators, technicians, and electronics experts.
- Agencies, the ARRL, and other NGO organizations insure that trained amateur radio operators are continuously available for public and emergency services. Most training for radio operations involves Winlink since it is used most often during events. Without NIMS and the Winlink technical training processes, along with practical operating HF expertise of the Amateur reserve volunteer communicator, there would be little use for amateur radio volunteers since the amateur's expertise is missing from today’s civil and corporate workforce. HF communications is the pride of Amateur radio, and it is used continually where other local communications infrastructures fail.
(e) Continuation and extension of the amateur's unique ability to enhance international goodwill.
- Look at the use of (and contributions to) Winlink on the worldwide map! The Winlink Team is an international team. The Winlink community of operators is global!
