27 Jun 2014

A contigious 60m band?

OFCOM is consulting on the agenda items for the World Radio Conference WRC2015 which takes place November 2015. See http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/consultations/wrc15/ .

The proposal is to support moves to allocate 5250-5450kHz to the Amateur Service on a secondary basis. This would replace the messy channels currently available. I recommend you write to OFCOM to support this move, which would give us a new ham band at 60m - ideal as the current sunspot cycle declines.

If allocated, it could be a few years before available.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I would rather we went back to a collection of (more?) fixed 3kHz channels instead of both the mess that's been imposed on us at present, and the "continuous allocation" currently being sought. 5MHz was initially allocated as an "experimental" band, and the channelized nature assisted those wishing to carry out "experiments" rather than those who are interested in tuning around on a VFO and working "DX". You always knew (apart from the QRM from fish-fone and "primary users") that you were "on frequency" with anyone else that was out there, but with a free-tuning allocation it'll be more like 40m, with stations spread at roughly 500Hz intervals anywhere across the allocation. Channelisation makes the 5MHz band "different" and much more useful for experimental purposes - and not just investigating the behaviour of this part of the HF spectrum but also having a relatively ordered region of spectrum to use for investigations into various other techniques, which is difficult to do on the normal amateur bands. It might seem a retrograde step but I'd be more interested in limiting the 5MHz band rather than opening it up as another " you are 59 please repeat your name callsign and qth" band.