Government is at it again

[davidgcet]

see Spectrum Management Bill Threatens Amateur Frequencies you better watch this one closely because they are trying to slip thru auctioning off parts of the 70cm bands, reallocating ham freqs to be auctioned for commercial use. there is even a brief mention that it includes 450-470 commercial freqs, but i have not read the actual bill document yet to see what exactly.

my apologies if this has already been posted, i searched but did not see it.

 

[tekshogun]

Jeeze, the actions of a few idiots in congress...

They mention 420-440 Mcs specifically and that is a direct threat to Amateur operations there and secondary access in the lower portion of that band that is shared with the US Government as the ARRL article mentions... I don't care about 450-470, that has always been a minefield of public safety and commercial use with FRS and GMRS woven into that delicate fabric.

With all that said, and in reading the bill, I think who ever wrote the bill had no idea what the hell they were doing. They quote the 420-440 spectrum as "recovered" public safety spectrum. That obviously isn't the case. Apparently, they believe everything below 512 megacycles is public safety and included our territory in there. ARRL is on the case and as they mentioned in their article, they're noting that basically 420-440 shouldn't even be in there, it should be more like 400-420 which is the actual public safety frequencies (largely federal) that should be recovered.

(d) RECOVERED PUBLIC SAFETY SPECTRUM.—
12- (1) AUCTION.—Not later than 10 years after
13- the date of enactment of this Act, the paired electro
14- magnetic spectrum bands of 420–440 megahertz and
15- 450–470 megahertz recovered as a result of the re
16- port and order required under subsection (c) shall be
17- auctioned off by the Federal Communications Com
18- mission through a system of competitive bidding
19- meeting the requirements of section 309 of the Com-
20- munications Act of 1934.

And moving on... if anything, out of all this narrowbanding and consolidation of public safety, commercial, and media (DTV for example) users, they should be giving ham radio MORE spectrum if you ask me.

Edit:
Another thought is that a lobbyist could have written this with the express intent of slipping it by, knowing full well what it means in terms of benefits for them at our expense...

 

[SQUAD109]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7E18 Safari/528.16)

Oh no don't touch the ham bands! where else can ppl complain about there meds and gas prices lol

 

[tekshogun]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7E18 Safari/528.16)

Oh no don't touch the ham bands! where else can ppl complain about there meds and gas prices lol

I'll admit, that was funny

you forgot one-sided religious and political debates too

 

[davidgcet]

well, "Brother Benny" as he is called here has his hand in it so there is no doubt it is the work of a lobbyist. he will sponsor anything that gets him monetary support from anyone.

 

[K3DRQ]

Oh no don't touch the ham bands! where else can ppl complain about there meds and gas prices lol

Normally I'd agree, we have quite a bit more privileges than we ever use, mostly in the UHF range, but 440 is one of our key bands and they should not mess with it.

 

[LtDoc]

What is so 'key' about 70 cm?
- 'Doc

 

[K3DRQ]

What is so 'key' about 70 cm?
- 'Doc

Because "dual-band" HTs cover "2-meters & 440". Also, it kind of mimics old VHF/UHF TV in a way.

 

[tekshogun]

Normally I'd agree, we have quite a bit more privileges than we ever use, mostly in the UHF range, but 440 is one of our key bands and they should not mess with it.

True, but different spectrums get used in different parts of the country more heavily than others.

Take 900mHz for example, another place where hams have secondary access, there are lots of 900 repeaters around the country put to good use. Where I am in North Carolina, there is very little, some, but very little, same with 1200 and the 420-440 is almost non-existent but some of that is used for satellite amateur satellite uplinks and the few coordinated ATV transmitters out there.

 

[gewecke]

What is so 'key' about 70 cm?
- 'Doc

It depends on where you live. I personally prefer 440 mhz.

n9zas

 

[K2KOH]

What is so 'key' about 70 cm?
- 'Doc

There is also a portion of 70cm below 440 where you are allowed to work SSB, and where there are also remote and repeater links. Don't let this bunch of boobs in the FCC take this away! They part of 220, that was enough!

 

[davidgcet]

that's the thing, this is not the FCC trying to do it.. this is Congress trying to make the FCC do it to recover money they "lost" when they decided not to auction part of 700 and just give it to state/local government instead. now they need to make up the 5.5 BILLION dollars they think they lost.

 

[lbfd09]

Quote:
(d) RECOVERED PUBLIC SAFETY SPECTRUM.—
12- (1) AUCTION.—Not later than 10 years after
13- the date of enactment of this Act, the paired electro
14- magnetic spectrum bands of 420–440 megahertz and
15- 450–470 megahertz recovered as a result of the re
16- port and order required under subsection (c) shall be
17- auctioned off by the Federal Communications Com
18- mission through a system of competitive bidding
19- meeting the requirements of section 309 of the Com-
20- munications Act of 1934.


I wonder if they cleared this with the Air Force? In California we have Pave Paws that limits the use on this band. At one time rumor had it that some 450 to 470 users were going to be visited by the Air Force.

This is another good example why the amateur community needs fellow hams both in Congress AND at the FCC.

Everyone here, make sure you talk this up at your club meetings, get-togethers, and round tables. Then let all in Washington, DC know how silly an idea you think this is!

 

[APTN]

It depends on where you live. I personally prefer 440 mhz.

n9zas

I don't really have a band preference, but live in close proximity to a 440 repeater. Because of my proximity, I can talk across multiple counties on low power with an HT. We mustn't let Cogress take our spectrum.

 

[kb2vxa]

OK settle down, those idiots in Congress don't know the FCC won't be auctioning off 70cM any time soon because it's PRIMARY to military use, Amateur Radio is a secondary allocation. Now do you think the FCC has jurisdiction when it comes to federal and military spectrum? Guess again. Speaking of secondary, there already are many public service and commercial licensees sharing the spectrum, do you think they'll put up with a spectrum auction? Yeah, that's two guess agains.

Congress, if each member had one working brain cell do you think they'd be smart enough to network them and come up with a brain? That's three.

 

[CalebATC]

Really, the military has a extremely valuable 175 Mhz all to them. And really, I don't see them loosing it for quite a while, if ever.

 

[gewecke]

OK settle down, those idiots in Congress don't know the FCC won't be auctioning off 70cM any time soon because it's PRIMARY to military use, Amateur Radio is a secondary allocation. Now do you think the FCC has jurisdiction when it comes to federal and military spectrum? Guess again. Speaking of secondary, there already are many public service and commercial licensees sharing the spectrum, do you think they'll put up with a spectrum auction? Yeah, that's two guess agains.

Congress, if each member had one working brain cell do you think they'd be smart enough to network them and come up with a brain? That's three.

Very true warren.


n9zas

 

[stmills]

They are taking the Public safety frequencies not all!

• They are taking the Public Safety Frequencies in 420-440 and 450-470 after moving all Public Safety and Federal LE to 700/800 mHz.
  
  

(d) Recovered Public Safety Spectrum-

• • (1) AUCTION- Not later than 10 years after the date of enactment of this Act, the paired electromagnetic spectrum bands of 420-440 megahertz and 450-470 megahertz recovered as a result of the report and order required under subsection (c) shall be auctioned off by the Federal Communications Commission through a system of competitive bidding meeting the requirements of section 309 of the Communications Act of 1934.

(c) Migration Plan Developed by FCC and DHS-

• • (1) IN GENERAL- Not later than 6 years after the date of enactment of this Act, the Federal Communications Commission, in consultation with the Secretary, the Assistant Secretary, and Federal, State and local public safety agencies, shall issue a report, detailing the plan for public safety entities to end their use of radio spectrum above 170 megahertz and below 512 megahertz and move all use to the radio spectrum licensed to public safety services, in the 700 megahertz and 800 megahertz bands.

• • (2) FACILITATION OF MIGRATION- The Secretary shall make amounts available out of the maintenance and operation grant program established under section 204 to facilitate the migration of public safety entity use of the radio spectrum licensed to public safety services in the 700 megahertz and 800 megahertz bands in accordance with the plan developed under paragraph (1).

• 
  
  
  

 

[poltergeisty]

So I wonder who would use this band after it's auctioned off?

 

[KC0KM]

We had this come up in our Club meeting last night. Evidently from one thing that was "heard" was that the one who drafted the bill looked at an old chart, and did not realize that the Amateur Bands where effected. However, I have sent a letter out. A link was sent to all of the hams in our area -- Ham Radio Letters. All you have to do is put in your call sign and it will print up a letter for you. Please note that they want you to mail to the following address.

Postal Mail: John Chwat, Chwat & Co., Suite 103, 625 Slaters Lane,
Alexandria, VA 22314.
E-mail: john.chwat@chwatco.com.

Also it is important they you sign you letter.
(If you want a copy of the entire email that I got from the Midwest ARRL, but have a feeling most of you have already seen it, please let me know I will forward it to you).