25 Sept 2019

Wasted spectrum?

In the UK, great swathes of spectrum are reserved for the military. I have long argued that some of this should be made available for the amateur service on a strictly non-interference basis. Even a very low ERP level could be set and stations closed if there is any hint of interference. It seems this falls on deaf ears.

In the meantime, much of the spectrum remains unavailable for serious experimental work. In no way am I saying such spectrum should not be available for the UK military as the primary user. But surely, under NoVs, parts of the spectrum could be opened up for serious "radio science" work? A phrase like "p***sing in the wind" come to mind. As commercial gear is not available at many of these frequencies, only serious experimenters are likely to apply for NoVs. Numbers would be small and all addresses known. We could even be asked to notify someone before experiments start.

2 comments:

Keith said...

Perhaps as a start, some small allocations near the EI centres of activity in their new VHF-Low Bands?.
.
I already have a rig which will transmit on 40MHz....

Regards,
Keith G0RQQ

Michael said...

But amateur radio already has a wide set of allocations. One could argue it works in reverse, that those bands can revert to mikitary use in the event of war.

I do remember getting my first ARRL Handbook in 1971 and seeing the ham bands listed, the higher they went the wider the bands. And above some frequency, I recall maybe 40,000MHz, it all belonged to hams.

Bands have been removed or reduced in those almost fifty years, and the range that belongs to hams is higher (or maybe removed?). But a lot of the ham bands are more for experimental use than operating. Anything microwave sees little use. Most of the reserved for military frequencies are VHF or UHF. Would more frequencies really add much?Would

Some more concrete reason seems necessary, even if it's just that a certain range might offer something of value to hams, like odd propagation.

Besides, the trend is to higher frequencies, which is why we keep getting more HF bands, as other services move higher in frequency.

Michael