Could the FCC "sunset" all American amateur radio?

[mmckenna]

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.

There are many repeater systems that are linked and cover very wide areas. CARLA is a big system that covers a lot of California and Nevada. There are many others.
Most of that linking is done via 70cm.

And then there's all the IP linked systems, both analog and digital. But consumer IP networks are not the same as microwave linking between sites. The "when all else fails" sort of comes apart when systems rely on the internet to work.

 

[Firekite]

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.

Yikes.

 

[alcahuete]

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.

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

You made my point for me. 144 people in a country of 330 million submitted logs in 2019, for bandwidth from which those 330 million people would gain benefit.

There are a tiny percentage of hams utilizing frequencies above 900 MHz. Even if every ham in the country used those frequencies, you are looking at 0.2% of the entire US population, occupying extremely valuable bandwidth to play with mesh networks, hold contests, play 10 GHz range wars, and link repeaters. The other 99.98% of the population would be much better served by that bandwidth.

It is unfortunate, as I am a ham radio operator as well, but the reality is what it is.

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.

It is much simpler to use the internet for linking. Almost every tower site has some form of internet these days. Microwave links are largely just used as backups, if that. In the commercial world, many microwave links are being removed from service completely.