Path: utzoo!utgpu!ugw.utcs.utoronto.ca!CUVMA!SWL-L Date: Mon, 8 Jan 90 15:51:52 EST Reply-To: Will Martin Sender: Short Wave Listener's List From: Will Martin Subject: Re: Comments invited: ham/swbc band-sharing X-To: Robert Horvitz X-cc: swl-l@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: UofToronto LAN redistribution Message-ID: <90Jan10.113900est.58591@ugw.utcs.utoronto.ca> Newsgroups: bitnet.swl-l Distribution: ut Approved: devnull@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu I would encourage ANARC to file comments that held the following position: New HF spectrum IS needed for broadcasters, and all such allocations should be worldwide and exclusive. We should oppose shared allocations, because the mutual interference caused by hams and broadcasters in the same spectrum space is destructive to all involved, and the geographic limitations are NOT effective in eliminating it. However, this does NOT mean that hams should lose their allocation(s), or even be forced to move. The broadcasters should move, and 7100-7300 kHz should be exclusively amateur worldwide. It would be a financial hardship for the large number of amateurs to have to alter or replace equipment to accomodate a changed allocation, but it would be much less of an impact if the broadcasters just started using a slightly different band. Most of their transmitters these days are programmable, not crystal-controlled, so they can as easily punch in a frequency in the 7300 - 7500 kHz range as one in 7100-7300 kHz. And if the band is kept close to the existing allocation, their antennae will work OK without much (if any) modification. There are vast chunks of underutilized HF spectrum these days, due to the widespread move to satellite links. Many of the "utility" allocations can be decreased, leaving some HF space for those services to use for backup to satellite links or for the limited number of point-to-point applications that don't have satellite support. But the areas of HF that ARE heavily used are broadcasting and amateur. Since the new generations of receivers are general-coverage, and new transmitters are programmable, lets move broadcasting into these formerly-utility segments. There are enough broadcasters now using "out-of-band" frequencies, including major worldwide services like the BBC, that it has been proved that trying to restrict broadcasters to narrow slices of spectrum won't work anyway. So admit the fact, and widen the broadcast allocations, and at the same time move them away from the hams. This would give more ham allocations (7100-7300 kHz) to the parts of the world outside of Region 2, so this change should be worded so as to be a pro-third-world proposal, in that it is giving those areas more amateur allocations, thereby increasing their opportunity for individual communications, which is consistent with the liberalization of Eastern Europe and the USSR. Note that I picked 7300-7500 as an arbitrary range. 6900-7100 should be just as good. The whole idea is that the broadcasters get an equivalent space adjacent to where they were, to minimize the technical impact. I don't have a spectrum chart handy so I don't know just what utility services these two choices impact, but anyone who tunes around on a general-coverage receiver can prove the usage level drops off dramatically as soon as you get out of the ham or broadcast "bands", and therefore these existing HF utility services needs can obviously be satisfied by smaller chunks of spectrum than they needed in the pre-satellite days. There is another argument against this -- the limited-coverage receivers out there in the hands of listeners; receivers that tune 7100-7300 kHz only, or have only slight extensions outside that range. I think this is not really a consideration. After all, the WARC already, many years ago, came out with a pro-SSB-broadcasting position. Going to SSB broadcasting would render the vast majority of the worlds' receivers obsolete anyway! If the WARC could take that position and thereby ignore their making useless all the non-SSB-capable receivers, they shouldn't pay attention to the impact of moving one of the many broadcasting bands to the users of this smaller number of receivers. New receivers should all be general-coverage anyway; the fact that companies are still coming out with some low-end limited-coverage models is an aberration. The WARC adopting this position will send a clear message to manufacturers to not market any such limited models in the future. I contend that this position is BOTH pro-SWL and pro-ham. The only people who could object are the utility listeners (and, I suppose, the utilities themselves! :-), and we aren't trying to get rid of any of their HF services, just push them together a little and free up the unused space they now luxuriate in. On the whole, I think this position will improve the lot of the maximum number of people at the minimum expense to the world at large. Feel free to post this on BBS's, reprint it in bulletins, or otherwise spread the idea around. Will Martin