Could the FCC "sunset" all American amateur radio?

[Firekite]

You mean the former FCC Chairman?

Yes, that’s the one

I thought to my self "What would the folks who paid hundreds of millions of dollars for that spectrum say when told they didn't really own it, and would have to give it back in a few years?"

Do you honestly think they don’t know that? That there’s some sort of shady practice going on where the FCC is selling spectrum permanently but slipping in a fine print thing that it’s actually a lease, and Verizon and AT&T’s lawyers didn’t notice?

Last year Verizon and AT&T petitioned the FCC to deny T-Mobile’s additional 600MHz acquisition. The title? “T-Mobile License LLC Spectrum Manager Lease Arrangements”

https://wireless2.fcc.gov/UlsEntry/attachments/attachmentViewRD.jsp?applType=search&fileKey=2142066578&attachmentKey=20976651&attachmentInd=applAttach

 

[WPXS472]

I think the average citizen has no clue as to what goes on at the FCC, and would be horrified if they really knew. I think it is a case of what is known as "regulatory capture."
Some years ago, I had a personal encounter with someone from the FCC. It caused me to lose what little faith I had in them.

 

[Thorndike113]

2) The majority of our bandwidth is not really sought after for commercial means.

Interesting fact - the majority of the ham radio bands are in an area sought after for commercial means. You only have less than 4MHZ worth of band below 30 mhz. You have over 1GHZ worth of band space above 30mhz and most of it is above 700mhz. Those are the bands that 1) no hams really use, and 2) those are the bands being taken by the FCC (i.e.- 3ghz band). Most of the ham community is so Immersed in the HF bands that they don't even realize how much bandwidth they have in most of the bands. I actually added it up one day and even I was surprised. In doing the research, I was even shocked at how much we have above 900mhz. Most hams probably don't realize it because when it comes to using radio, we all talk on the radio and usually utilize the bands where signals travel well, which means, most of the bands above even 450mhz wouldn't be considered because of their short distances meaning that most hams would only be concerned with the bands that provide long distance communication, essentially ignoring the bands that don't.

Honestly, Its probably not the FCC you need to worry about, its the billionaires that invent technologies that need these bands. When these people come to the FCC with an idea and they are willing to pay, the FCC totally forgets that there is a thing called ham radio. They just see dead air (which is what everything above 900mhz has essentially become with ham radio) and they give it away telling the billionaires that the frequencies don't get used anyhow. Sad? Yes. But if the bands don't get used, ya cant make that up. I'm pretty sure the FCC will never touch anything below 30mhz and quite honestly, those bands are what really matter to most hams anyhow so when it comes to taking away bands that the hams have, it most likely wont be any bands the hams use. It would be like someone who has two cars and they only really use one of them for everything. If someone came along and stole the car the person never uses, are they going to be down and out? Nope. Will the theft sting that person? Yep, but they will get over it and go on with their life.

 

[dlwtrunked]

I do not think the FCC has totally forgot ham radio, but they have often forgotten physics by mostly seeming to be lawyers. Also, note that at 900 MHz, we are only a secondary user and have to already accept interference there, which is one of the reasons it is less used. In the case of some bands, we simply got them as they were available but may not have needed them (then or now?). [Note: It is "MHz" (not "mhz" or "MHZ") and it is "GHz" (not "GHZ" or "ghz"). These are international standard and some of us, particularly those who have worked in science areas, find reading the wrong ones difficult as we sometimes interpret initially the correct meaning of the wrong abbreviation. (By the way, "kHz"--a "K" is not used as that indicates Kelvin temperature units.) I am not trying to be picky - the wrong abbreviations mean other things than intended. Summary: k, M, G, and Hz are correct.]

 

[mmckenna]

…. we are only a secondary user and have to already accept interference there, which is one of the reasons it is less used.

I believe that most hams are not aware of this, or ignore it. "Secondary user" means it's not really "ours". We are permitted to use it, with limitations.

If we want to use the 'car' analogy, it's like borrowing someones car. We may be able to drive it, but it's not 'ours'. If the owner decides to use it that day, or decides to sell it, hams are S.O.L. No matter how much they anguish over it.

On the professional side, I see a valid reason for the amateur radio bands in HF, VHF and UHF. I see little reason to preserve hundreds of MHz of spectrum above that for "experimentation". While there certainly is some experimentation going on within amateur radio, it does not require hoarding all that spectrum just in case. Many other radio services have a valid need for spectrum, and as technology advances, hams standing in the way of that isn't going to help.

 

[alcahuete]

Interesting fact - the majority of the ham radio bands are in an area sought after for commercial means. You only have less than 4MHZ worth of band below 30 mhz. You have over 1GHZ worth of band space above 30mhz and most of it is above 700mhz. Those are the bands that 1) no hams really use, and 2) those are the bands being taken by the FCC (i.e.- 3ghz band). Most of the ham community is so Immersed in the HF bands that they don't even realize how much bandwidth they have in most of the bands. I actually added it up one day and even I was surprised. In doing the research, I was even shocked at how much we have above 900mhz. Most hams probably don't realize it because when it comes to using radio, we all talk on the radio and usually utilize the bands where signals travel well, which means, most of the bands above even 450mhz wouldn't be considered because of their short distances meaning that most hams would only be concerned with the bands that provide long distance communication, essentially ignoring the bands that don't.

They can have it! We don't use it. I'm referring to real bands that hams actually use. It is not at all sought after. Up in the GHz where a couple dozen hams experiment with mesh systems? Nah, we can let it go.

 

[bill4long]

Radio. A helluva thing.

 

[Thorndike113]

They can have it! We don't use it. I'm referring to real bands that hams actually use. It is not at all sought after. Up in the GHz where a couple dozen hams experiment with mesh systems? Nah, we can let it go.

And that's why ham radio will eventually become a bunch of old guys sitting on HF calling CQ. When I used to say ham radio to someone and they didn't know what I was talking about I would just tell them, "ya know, the guys who sit around on radios talking to people around the world" and then they knew what I was talking about. Now when I mention that, a lot of people don't even know what that is. Were talking about a span of 25 years. Sadly, if the GHZ bands are all taken and then eventually frequencies lower than that, YES, ham radio will become something found in a museum. Lets face it, there isn't a lot of people getting into ham radio anymore. The ones into it currently are all getting old and eventually will die, and with them will go ham radio if this kind of thinking is used.

When it comes to those GHZ bands, if the only thing hams can come up with are mesh networks, they certainly are not using ham radio to its full potential. When cell phone towers are set up, there is a system that sits behind what our phones use. It is the 'silent to us' end of their system that no one knows about called a backhaul. It is a system that links all the towers together and makes it so that when you are on a cell phone between towers, the system can tell which tower you are coming through clearly and switch you off to it. The frequencies used for this backhaul system are the same bands we all have privileges in. Hams CAN do the same thing with their repeaters and possibly even simplex.

Years ago, shortly after I got into ham radio, I used to draw up plans for linked systems whether it be through a repeater or on simplex. One thing I always kept as a base when creating these was to design these systems so that in the event of EVERY single system going down, this system would stand and still operate and link hams over a large area. This all thought of before the days of digital. The response I got from hams was a little chuckle and wow that's nice, followed by "So when are you upgrading your license so you can get on HF?" It was shortly after that, I abandoned ham radio.
If the ham community wants new members to keep the hobby alive, HF is NOT the way to do it. Show them they can do amazing things with all of the bands. Show them something they can relate to. Younger people who are the next generation speak internet, they speak digital, they can relate to what they see in the public safety world and its technology. These are the ones who will steer ham radio when all the older folk are gone. I originally got into ham radio because of the bands above 30mhz and its technology. Don't let it die. Show new potential hams what they really have to work with.

 

[Duckford]

And that's why ham radio will eventually become a bunch of old guys sitting on HF calling CQ. When I used to say ham radio to someone and they didn't know what I was talking about I would just tell them, "ya know, the guys who sit around on radios talking to people around the world" and then they knew what I was talking about. Now when I mention that, a lot of people don't even know what that is. Were talking about a span of 25 years. Sadly, if the GHZ bands are all taken and then eventually frequencies lower than that, YES, ham radio will become something found in a museum. Lets face it, there isn't a lot of people getting into ham radio anymore. The ones into it currently are all getting old and eventually will die, and with them will go ham radio if this kind of thinking is used.

When it comes to those GHZ bands, if the only thing hams can come up with are mesh networks, they certainly are not using ham radio to its full potential. When cell phone towers are set up, there is a system that sits behind what our phones use. It is the 'silent to us' end of their system that no one knows about called a backhaul. It is a system that links all the towers together and makes it so that when you are on a cell phone between towers, the system can tell which tower you are coming through clearly and switch you off to it. The frequencies used for this backhaul system are the same bands we all have privileges in. Hams CAN do the same thing with their repeaters and possibly even simplex.

Years ago, shortly after I got into ham radio, I used to draw up plans for linked systems whether it be through a repeater or on simplex. One thing I always kept as a base when creating these was to design these systems so that in the event of EVERY single system going down, this system would stand and still operate and link hams over a large area. This all thought of before the days of digital. The response I got from hams was a little chuckle and wow that's nice, followed by "So when are you upgrading your license so you can get on HF?" It was shortly after that, I abandoned ham radio.
If the ham community wants new members to keep the hobby alive, HF is NOT the way to do it. Show them they can do amazing things with all of the bands. Show them something they can relate to. Younger people who are the next generation speak internet, they speak digital, they can relate to what they see in the public safety world and its technology. These are the ones who will steer ham radio when all the older folk are gone. I originally got into ham radio because of the bands above 30mhz and its technology. Don't let it die. Show new potential hams what they really have to work with.

I'd love to see radio expand and new tech come into play, would love to see more innovators and people who want to make linked systems. But that requires good techies who want the challenge and want to innovate and take things forward. That's why the handfuls of people in microwave are some of the truest Hams, building their own stuff and blazing trails. It is a great thing.

But there are flaws to your argument. The generation you are trying to "associate" with are, through easy living and social engineering, tend to be intellectually and scientifically lazy. They don't want to join Ham so they can build their own cell phone systems, they want plug and play tech, they aren't interested in your expeditions to unknown and far away technologies. Give them DMR and a hotspot, where they just basically talk directly into their PC and are basically no different than Skype, and they learn absolutely nothing about radio. That is the worst path Ham can take.

The young techies of the new generation who will trailblaze will do so without being herded there like sheep. I think the argument that any good young radio operator is going to give up on GHz frequencies and linked systems because some old Elmer comes and says "get on HF" is the most worthless one I've ever heard. I've heard others claim that enjoyment of HF and old fashioned simplex will cause young radio operators microwave equipment to evaporate into thin air and any interest in linked systems turn into magic dust that blows away in the wind, but how does HF magically block Ham radio operators from being interested in higher frequency linked systems? As if listening to an 80 meter net while working on your new innovations for the high bands is literally impossible for some magical reason.

It comes down to the modern logical fallacy that the lack of success of something MUST BE THE FAULT OF SOMETHING THAT ALREADY EXISTS SO CONSTANT DESTRUCTION IS NECESSARY FOR INNOVATION. Salesmen push this logical fallacy because they need you to give up what you already have to make a new purchase. But it makes no sense in reality. GHz area work isn't abandoned because everyone left it for HF. HF isn't a magical barrier or blocker to the higher frequencies. HF isn't sneaking into children's bedrooms and stealing prospective young Hams with grand aspirations to work UHF and above away in the night. HF didn't take boatloads of non existent GHz radios and equipment and dump them into the ocean.

Instead of accepting there is a lack of interest in the upper bands and a lack of people willing to build the new radios and tech to bring out all the wonderful potential of those bands, the GHz crowd gets angry and wants a boogeyman to lynch. So they point an angry finger at the older generation and claim "its all the fault of those old Hams and those damn HF rigs" and burn an effigy and wish for the Great Radio Revolution where the Elmers are whisked away as kulaks to gulags and the super high bands are finally released from the yolk of oppression from the old Elmers and the low bands.

Leading to crying and whining and blaming, with no actual productive gain. Instead of encouraging the young techies coming up the hobby looking for a new challenge and new technology, which is good and useful, its divisiveness and counterproductive fighting.

 

[mmckenna]

I know many hams that have built mesh networks using GHz band equipment. Really nice setups hauling video around for monitoring wildland fires.
But it's all commercial off the shelf equipment running modified firmware to put them on the ham bands.
Sure, you can call it 'experimentation', but that might be stretching it. It's the same products anyone can purchase on the internet, no ham license required.

I know there are hams running home built microwave equipment, but a lot of it is using commercial components/feed horns, etc. A bit more experimentation.

My experience with hams and microwave is that it's pretty rare to see anything being done that could be called true experiments. Most of what I've seen is trying to make distant contacts. Sure, fun, but what does it prove, other that in ideal conditions, it can be done.

Compared to where industry is right now, hams have fallen behind. The products on the market are way beyond 'ham innovation'.
With industry moving so fast, I'm not sure ham radio can ever get out in front.

Where ham radio stands a chance is training up young people to have an interest in technology. That technology doesn't need to be -just- two way radio, it can be many things. For that to be effective, there needs to be a flow of young people into the hobby. That appears to be the current (and longstanding) challenge to the hobby. I don't know how to fix that, I'm well out of that demographic. What ham radio is up against is what my 16 year old son is exposed to: Laptop computers, always on internet, smart phones, wifi, cellular, etc. Trying to convince the younger generation that ham radio holds some sort of magic that they don't already have access to is a big challenge. The "when all else fails" was a failure, and doesn't help the attraction of younger people.
I'm not going to pretend to know what the fix is, but I can see all the attempts that haven't worked. The current attempts are falling flat with the 16 year old crowd.

 

[Thorndike113]

You do make a good point. When I speak of what looks like HF stealing bright people from the GHz bands, I say this only from what I have personally observed. While it may not be the case all over the place, I have watched the following over the years.....

New hams start off with the Tech license. That gives you privileges in all bands above 30MHz. They get on repeaters and talk and you hear all the hams on these repeaters all talking with them helping them get setup even better on the air (which is really awesome), but they, over time encourage these ones to upgrade their license and entice them to do so so that they can enjoy all those bands down on HF (because "thats where the action is"). They tell the new ones how they are going to have so much fun once they upgrade because they can talk to Europe and Africa and many other places. I had it done to me many years ago and it was what pushed me away from ham radio. I had a lot of hams who wouldn't bother with me because I went against the system when it came to upgrading. Over the past 25 years I have watched one new ham after another drop off of the bands above 30MHz. They went one of two ways. 1- they went down on HF and never came back, or 2- they left ham radio. Still to this day, I can hear hams elmering new hams and enticing them to upgrade their license, which by the way ONLY gives you privileges on HF. It doesn't expand privileges above 30MHz. Like I said before, It may not occur all over the place but it happens a lot more than most care to admit. Instead of older hams ALSO encouraging the newer hams to play with frequencies in the GHz bands, I only hear them entice them down into the HF bands. I have NEVER in my 25 years of playing with ham radio ever heard anyone say anything about how much fun they were having working in the GHz bands. NEVER!

You do have a point when it comes to the plug n play attitude with hotspots and radios and that is the part where I also don't really care for the way its become this plug n play type of situation. I believe in RF all the way. I'm not against hotspots as I use one also because of my situation. I don't have the liberty to coat my property with all sorts of spider webs of coax and antennas mounted everywhere. DMR repeaters in my area are spaced too far apart for portable use and very limited on talk groups. I think you can still link repeaters together using wireless rather than wired internet. Internet should be there secondary to a wireless backbone to these repeaters. The GHz bands can provide this. Then there is the endless possibilities using simplex. If every new ham that gets into ham radio only sees going from VHF to HF as the route most hams go, they will never be encouraged to explore those upper bands. I didn't realize until recently how much space hams have above 30MHz. Its HUGE compared to HF. Most people who become hams probably will never know how much actually exists above 900MHz and sadly will never explore it. I personally never knew because the only thing most hams talk about are the HF bands. I'm yet to find someone who works with the GHz bands the way the commercial world does.

I'm not trying to put down HF because HF has its place and you can do things with it that you cant do on other bands. But why only entice people into HF and not anywhere else?

 

[Thorndike113]

I'm not going to pretend to know what the fix is, but I can see all the attempts that haven't worked. The current attempts are falling flat with the 16 year old crowd.

If the current hams could show the reality of what really happens when everything goes down from natural things like storms etc, then maybe the younger generation could actually see. Society has built up this idea in everyones mind that the current system can never be destroyed and will never go down. Ive seen it happen where back up generator systems went down due to no fuel. What then? That's where solar probably comes into play. I know people up here in Maine that use straight solar and can power machines. The state of Maine has sites way up in the mountains that survive on solar alone. If they can do it, Hams can too. Ya just need to find a way to get the younger crowd interested somehow. I know I personally never brag about the HF bands when it comes to ham radio. I brag about emergency communications and the bands above 30MHz and relate it to how the public safety systems work. That's when I get non hams understanding me.

 

[mmckenna]

True, however most young people do just fine when the cell phones don't work. My son grew up spending a lot of time camping, so he just adapts. The "emergency" aspect of amateur radio doesn't hold much for younger people. Goes back to the failed "when all else fails" mess that the ARRL came up with. It's only attractive to the whackers and emcomm crowd. Emergency communications is an entirely different conversation...

Network failures are a real thing, but other than limited emergency communications, there's not much hams can do. And not much they can do to benefit the teen age crowd when the internet goes down. Again, ham doesn't have much attraction in that demographic. While we like to think that teenagers cannot function without the internet, it's just not true, at least not with any of my sons friends.

 

[tweiss3]

This is coming from a relatively new ham (just rolled over a year) and someone younger (has a few decades left in the work force atleast). If this is too far off base, let me know, but related to the past few posts.

I would love to do more experimenting in ham radio. Heck, I'd love to really start doing more in 1200MHz+ bands available, but as a whole, electronics and ham radio has changed. I'd love to play around with 900MHz, but haven't had any luck finding equipment. Its all old commercial gear hacked for ham, but even the programs to make changes are now nearly incompatible with a current computer. Want to get into 1200MHz, you have two choices available, a $1500+ Icom base station (yes it's on my wish list) or Alinco's G7 HT. I have yet to find equipment that would even start getting me into 2300MHz or above.

Some might say, ham radio was built on make it yourself. That may be, but there also used to be a radio shack you could go find a resistor, tube or capacitor on the shelf. Heck, even Heathkit stopped making transceiver kits. Sure, i've built a RPi based HamVOIP node, and other small projects, but as a whole, it seems the build your own is mostly gone.

Is it nice that we do have more technologies available? Sure, and I now own equipment for D-Star, DMR, YSF and HF computer based digital modes. Most of those weren't around just a few (10) years ago. Along with that progress, it seems the community has become an industry instead of a hobby of enthusiasts, and why let the new technician build his radio when I can sell you one for $20, then another a month later, then another, allowing many things to become disposable (this is across multiple industries as well, not just radio).

Sorry if that was too much of a tangent, but I'm always up for trying something, but even getting pointed in the right direction is difficult in this day an age of buy it now and be on the air in 2 minutes.

 

[Thorndike113]

Want to get into 1200MHz, you have two choices available, a $1500+ Icom base station (yes it's on my wish list) or Alinco's G7 HT. I have yet to find equipment that would even start getting me into 2300MHz or above.

You do have a very good point. The price of a lot of radios and radio equipment is so ridiculously priced that it seems like only rich people can enjoy this hobby fully and if you're poor you're stuck with a Chinese radio on two meters or 440. That's where I think the hams that are well off should be the ones exploring this and helping out the hobby. I've heard a few hams express interest in that RF finder radio which is basically an Android and I believe a dual band radio all packed into one for a price tag of around $1,000. If I was rich enough to afford something like that I would not be spending it on something that could become outdated within about 6 months (the Android system).

What would also be nice is if these companies or entities who operate radio systems, who happened to have the equipment up in those bands, could make this equipment available when they upgrade their systems. A lot of times the equipment they take off of those towers is still in working condition. You take for instance the 911 center for my county. Real soon here, they are going to be upgrading their whole system from what the newspaper article said. They have a big 900 MHz backhaul on their system. I can almost bet they're going to rip that thing down and get rid of it, or store it in a closet somewhere. Why not make it available to the ham operators? The hams could possibly fix it up, change the frequencies into the ham band, and use it to link some repeaters together. It's just kind of strange that you never hear where this equipment ends up when they switch to their digital systems. I'm constantly looking around on eBay and other sites for used radio equipment a lot of times and I never see gigantic fleets of radios out of some of these departments. I've known of departments where they got a brand spanking new fleet of radios and a new repeater and within less than 5 years a radio company swoops in and gets them to drink the digital Kool-Aid and they turn around and cry to the taxpayers that they need so many billions of dollars to replace their radio system and they end up doing it. Where did all those perfectly good radios go to? I think that would be something to really look into where the ham community could benefit from it. Oh well, I guess we can dream, haha.

 

[mmckenna]

This is coming from a relatively new ham (just rolled over a year) and someone younger (has a few decades left in the work force atleast). If this is too far off base, let me know, but related to the past few posts.

Nothing wrong with being a new ham. I think that's one problem ham radio has, some rate others by their time in the hobby. I grew up across the street from a brilliant EMI/RFI engineer. He had little interest in ham radio due to the way other hams acted. He knew his stuff, but other hams simply rated him by his relatively new license. After a few years (and retirement) he became more active. But looking back on those first few years, there were some hams that made total asses of themselves because they treated an experienced engineer like crap simply because of his license. That guy taught me a lot, and gave me some of my first gear when I got started. He was much more of a ham than the others. Don't let anyone give you any static about "only" being a ham for 1 year.

I'd love to play around with 900MHz, but haven't had any luck finding equipment. Its all old commercial gear hacked for ham, but even the programs to make changes are now nearly incompatible with a current computer.

Yeah, I played around with some old Standard 900MHz radios for a while, lost interest due to the lack of activity.

Want to get into 1200MHz, you have two choices available, a $1500+ Icom base station (yes it's on my wish list) or Alinco's G7 HT. I have yet to find equipment that would even start getting me into 2300MHz or above.

Yeah, Icom and their 1200MHz thing sort of fizzled.
2300 and up, you either build yourself, or you take commercial off the shelf stuff and modify it. I know a few guys that did this with old WiFi routers and custom firmware. Cranked up the rf power on the channels that are shared with the secondary ham allocation and got a bit better range than the consumer stuff, but not a big deal.

 

[mmckenna]

What would also be nice is if these companies or entities who operate radio systems, who happened to have the equipment up in those bands, could make this equipment available when they upgrade their systems. A lot of times the equipment they take off of those towers is still in working condition. You take for instance the 911 center for my county. Real soon here, they are going to be upgrading their whole system from what the newspaper article said. They have a big 900 MHz backhaul on their system. I can almost bet they're going to rip that thing down and get rid of it, or store it in a closet somewhere. Why not make it available to the ham operators? The hams could possibly fix it up, change the frequencies into the ham band, and use it to link some repeaters together.

Some of it is rules within the agency/city/state, etc. Surplussing old equipment gets to be a real challenge. Simply giving away government property is a big deal. Someone has to decide who gets it and who doesn't. They you get arguments about it, making sure it actually gets used and not just sold on e-Bay, not used to make profit for someone else, etc. Yeah, on the surface, stupid rules, but those rules came about because someone did something stupid and got in trouble.

I've donated some stuff to local ham groups. I used to run our old backup batteries through one of the local clubs, and they loved it. A few of the guys were really thankful, a few were A.H.'s because they were "Used batteries" and "I want more", or "Why are you giving those to XYZ, they'll never use them…". Then there were the disposal rules. Making sure that someone didn't dump them later on, etc.

I donated old VHF repeaters to a ham club. They never did anything with them. They sat around for years and not sure what happened after that. These were 100 watt VHF MSF-5000's with two channel receivers. Battery backup, duplexers, lots of good stuff.

And then the paper work to dispose of that stuff became an issue. Actually found it easier to transfer it to another agency and let them part it out to keep their old stuff running.

 

[jwt873]

If every new ham that gets into ham radio only sees going from VHF to HF as the route most hams go, they will never be encouraged to explore those upper bands. I didn't realize until recently how much space hams have above 30MHz. Its HUGE compared to HF. Most people who become hams probably will never know how much actually exists above 900MHz and sadly will never explore it.

Another thing people don't realize is that there are a LOT of hams actually using frequencies above 900 MHz. Just because a person doesn't know any active microwavers, doesn't mean they don't exist.

Most major populated centers have some sort of microwave society, group or club. Not only that but there are national and international ham radio microwave conferences held regularly. They even have microwave ham radio contests that see activity. For example here are the results of a 2019 ARRL contest 10GHz and up.. There were 144 logs submitted --> https://contests.arrl.org/ContestResults/2019/10-GHz-2019-FinalFullResults.pdf

The other thing is that it seems that many people think that hams are just a collection of average Joes that memorized a bunch of questions and are only capable of communicating with each other using store bought equipment. In fact there are amateurs that are engineers and IEEE types that capable of designing and building equipment.

And these hams do actually design, modify and build equipment for amateur microwave use. They usually wind up as keynote speakers at the microwave conventions I previously mentioned. As a side note, I have a amateur friend who has designed a feed horn commonly used today by amateurs today and has had QSO's on just about all the UHF/Microwave bands available to hams up to 78 GHz.

I don't get the "who needs it" attitude... I think anything (frequency or otherwise) taken away from me is a loss of freedom whether I have any intention to use it or not.

 

[mmckenna]

I don't get the "who needs it" attitude... I think anything (frequency or otherwise) taken away from me is a loss of freedom whether I have any intention to use it or not.

I get that. You have access to a resource, and you don't want to lose it, even if you are not currently using that resource.

But, that shouldn't stand in the way of others also having access to that resource. By others, I mean non-hams.

To reserve large slices of spectrum in the GHz range for ham radio only, when there are others that need it, isn't going to stand the test. It's reserving a finite resource for a small segment of the population. If that resource can benefit a larger piece of the population, that it needs to be seriously considered. In other words, doing the most good for the most people. Not reserving spectrum for a small segment of the population to play with.
And I did specifically use the term "play". Unless there is some real benefit exhibited by giving hams sole access to this resource, then it's play/hobby. If hams want to retain this controlled/protected access to these bands, they need to start doing something productive with it.

 

[Thorndike113]

And I did specifically use the term "play". Unless there is some real benefit exhibited by giving hams sole access to this resource, then it's play/hobby. If hams want to retain this controlled/protected access to these bands, they need to start doing something productive with it.

That's why hams need to start using it to link repeaters together, especially on DMR. If a whole entire state can link a trunked system together, how come hams cant use those frequencies to link a whole state or at least groups of repeaters together. Then of course, you have to prove that these repeaters are being used. I've heard repeaters that only get used once a month if they are lucky.