Have you tried coordinating a VHF-Hi pair in a major urban area?
I have.
I've said it before and I'll keep saying it. VHF high band is a big garbage can. They don't need MORE frequencies with the same failed methodologies. They need RESPONSIBILITY on all fronts.
What needs to happen:
1. The "powers that be" have to get away from the mindset of "selling frequencies" to STEWARDING frequencies. That won't happen because stewardship doesn't make for revenue.
2. NO ONE needs 40 km AOP unless your jurisdiction is that big or bigger. I've seen so many 1 square mile towns that have tried to BS their way into "needing" the frequency for 25 miles in all directions. The database needs to get away from this "beer can" methodology (put a beer can on a map and draw a circle). Submit a shapefile or KML of your jurisdiction, add a 3 mile buffer, and make your service contour not exceed that area. Period. That means directional antennas, no mountaintops to cover the valley below, and all the other things that co-opt the frequency for 8 states. If you're a state or a gigantic county, that's one thing. But for small communities, I'd follow the NYC/NJ 700 MHz RPC (Region 8) methodology of statistically putting 80% of the signal inside the defined service area and a buffer around it. Bad news for scanner land because you shouldn't be able to hear it 120 miles away under normal conditions.
3. The FCC screwed up on their poor attempt at "refarming." In fact, they abandoned that and just took the lazy man's way out by calling it “narrowbanding.” Probably just as well, because it would have turned into building the pyramids, like the NPSPAC "rebanding" shuffle, except without a transition administrator or the deep pockets of a "buyer" paying for the shuffle.
What was needed from the FCC were these things:
a) 6.25 kHz channel centers, just like the NTIA channels. 4K00 emissions go on the 6.25 kHz centers. 7K60, 8K10, and 11K2 emissions go on the 12.5 kHz centers. That way there is no spill-over into adjacent channels. Instead, by halving 15 kHz, we put 11K2 of turds into a 7.5 kHz bag. It spills over. So, you can’t use the adjacent channel anywhere near an incumbent. If it were based on 6.25 centers, all of these technologies would fit within their allotted channelspace and the adjacent could be used. Narrowbanding really didn’t fix anything except for getting older, often garbage, equipment off the street.
b) License base and repeater receivers, or at least record them in ULS. The reason that doesn’t happen, aside from the monumental undertaking, is that the FCC doesn’t really have the funding to significantly change ULS. They were supposed to go to a “Consolidated Licensing System” (“CLS”) about 12 years ago, and it was never funded. It went away. So, every time Congress throws something at them, they must find the funding to react and adjust ULS. Licensing receiver sites and antennas gives real spectrum managers an idea of what to protect instead of guessing. Canada also licenses system receivers and, in international matters, will object to any frequency reuse that isn’t demonstrated to go down to the noisefloor under normal conditions at that site.
c) The FCC neglected to direct a standard repeater offset on VHF high band. Instead, they are picked at random. My repeater input is someone else’s repeater output. If their CTCSS or CDCSS is the same as mine, they will key my repeater and never even know it. It’s even worse when someone attempts to deploy a VHF trunked system (an abomination of nature, like breeding cats and dogs), or an atypical channel occupancy pattern, like DMR with AVL on the second timeslot keeping the repeater transmitting for almost 24 hours constantly. There needed to be a standard split with NO base station operation whatsoever on the mobile frequencies. There are “mobile only” channels in 90.20. And, the FCC allowed exceptions for “secondary use” of base stations on those channels. NO MEANS NO. No secondary use of base stations on mobile only frequencies.
d) Segregating simplex systems from repeaters. No one ever thought it was important to segregate simplex operations from repeater operations. My hometown fire department was on VHF simplex, and it worked fine until the band got crowded. A manufacturer put up a big simulcast system 75 miles away in another state, and my guys were taking a beating in a basement fire, potentially calling MAYDAY, when I’m hearing Mountain Zeke and Clem yacking about driving down Rt. 18 and picking up the tanker and finding parking spaces near the firehouse for their pickup trucks. 75 miles away. And, we couldn’t hear in-town simplex traffic anymore. The police were no better on their VHF simplex system. Simplex needs to be segregated from repeaters. For a while, they were forced to use cardioid patterns because of a complaint I filed in 1988, but more and more agencies turned up on the frequency and the noise made its use intolerable. The neighboring town shared the channel. For their 3 square miles, they had 8 voting receivers just to hear portable traffic in their 3 square miles because of all the blocking. And, NO MEANS NO. No repeaters on simplex channels, although talk-around should be allowed on repeater output frequencies. Because segregating repeaters and simplex systems isn't a thing, the agencies abandoned VHF and went to a UHF repeater which has been chugging since 1994.
4. The “preparers” are usually clerical workers before someone handed them a generic application as a template and they started demanding powers and ERPs over 90.205 limits for the covered areas because they’re incapable of doing basic engineering. (Look at how many mathematically derived ERP calculations you see in ULS. It’s sparse) Many can’t tell the difference between a radio and a toaster oven. So, many of them fudged a 40 km AOP so that “safe harbor” doesn’t red-flag the application. Then they scream that their client “NEEDS!” all that power (see above on my take on 110 W output and 40 km AOP for 1 square mile communities), and, by the way, they also need 20 MHz of separation because an unscrupulous dealer sold them a mobile duplexer when they really needed to buy a large pass-reject duplexer because of the usage density in their region. And, they marked that mobile duplexer up to the same cost as a “real” duplexer.
5. Warehousing of frequencies. I used to have a jurisdiction near me that hoarded frequencies and held them fallow. I was a friend of the system manager and he would use some of his budget to “buy” a channel for animal control, park rangers, you name it, he had a VHF pair just for them. And, after hours and on weekends it would be fallow. Meanwhile, nearby another agency needs a clear frequency pair for responder activities. If you need more than a certain number of pairs, you should have to trunk them (go back to my statement on trunking VHF 90.20 frequencies being an abomination of nature… unless there’s a carve-out for them). In most cases, a handful of trunked pairs can emulate many more discrete frequencies. Need a new channel? Have the system manager set up a new talkgroup and program radios for it.
6. Vacated frequencies. You turn up an 800 MHz system? Cancel your VHF licenses. No forever “backups.” Build backup functionality into the new system. So many systems are sitting on channels that are for some contingency that never happens, but they’re holding the licenses and renewing them with no intention of ever using them again. The same is true of VHF low band, where a talkgroup dumps out on a legacy low band frequency, killing it anywhere nearby by broadcasting talkgroup traffic on the legacy channel. Forever, or until the base station burns up and no one in the agency notices, because they gave up listening to that frequency 28 years ago.
7. Digital and atypical channel occupancy pattern usage need to be segregated from analog.
8. THERE IS NO EXCUSE FOR RUNNING ANYTHING IN CARRIER SQUELCH ANYMORE!!!
Fix all these things and there will be PLENTY of frequencies on VHF. There’s no need to take anything away from anyone if they didn't bollox them up from the get-go.
