The Backbone of VHF Amateur Radio May Be Under Threat
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Re: The Backbone of VHF Amateur Radio May Be Under Threat
#2There are too many existing terrestrial and space users for this to fly. They're not getting a globally harmonized ham band. Is it April 1?
Re: The Backbone of VHF Amateur Radio May Be Under Threat
#3The proposed frequency is just above the aviation VHF band (108 to 136Mhz) so it makes sense to use it when aviation runs out of frequencies to use.
However... EASA has made all aviation radios switch from 25Khz channel spacing to 8.33Khz channel spacing, essentially tripling the available number of frequencies for everything between 118 and 136Mhz. So I cannot imagine there is a current lack of frequencies for aviation in France (or anywhere in Europe).
The US has some shortage (and still uses 25Khz channel separation), but they solved it by sharing frequencies between small airports.
Re: The Backbone of VHF Amateur Radio May Be Under Threat
#4the ISPs are likely using ham radio as a weapon to fight against liberalization of radio freqs, which they see as possible future competition
Re: The Backbone of VHF Amateur Radio May Be Under Threat
#5Discussed yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20321272
Re: The Backbone of VHF Amateur Radio May Be Under Threat
#6There are too many existing terrestrial and space users for this to fly. They're not getting a globally harmonized ham band. Is it April 1?
Especially not one of the most popular bands for new hams (and probably one of the most popular bands period). The vast majority of young hams these days enter the hobby by getting whichever basic license their country offers and buying a cheap Chinese dual-band 2m/70cm handheld radio (like the ubiquitous Baofeng). Learning how the repeaters work is a rite of passage.
While I think 70cm is probably more popular than 2m in Europe, 2m is the preferred default in North America. Just about everywhere you go on the continent, you'll be able to find a 2m band FM repeater on some nearby hilltop with the customary 600 kHz channel spacing and a CTCSS control tone. Is every cash-strapped amateur radio club supposed to go and drop a few grand to convert all these stations to 70cm?
I could probably see an argument for potentially clawing back (not eliminating) the bandwidth for some of the microwave allocations in C band and up, which are definitely under-utilized by the amateur radio community. But Thales trying to make a land-grab on one of the most popular ham bands simply because it happens to be globally allocated is utterly absurd.
Re: The Backbone of VHF Amateur Radio May Be Under Threat
#7There are too many existing terrestrial and space users for this to fly. They're not getting a globally harmonized ham band. Is it April 1?
According to the article, it's only 144-146. Here in the US, we actually have 144-148 (4Mhz wide). I wouldn't be surprised if not only the ARRL got involved but other government agencies as well, here, if this actually looked like it was going to occur.
Right now, and for the foreseeable future, the 2M band is the workhorse for things like storm spotters talking to the NWS. All storm spotting happens on a 2M repeater here as well as across networks all across the midwest. There is no simple replacement for it. There are millions of dollars in investment by thousands of smaller organizations that would be a massive burden to replace.
Re: The Backbone of VHF Amateur Radio May Be Under Threat
#8The fact that there was little opposition was partly due to the short time between the submittal of the amended proposal by France and the meeting itself.
Here's some background by someone who is well connected with the German authorities:
http://mailman.pe1itr.com/pipermail/moon-net/2019-June/03977...
Re: The Backbone of VHF Amateur Radio May Be Under Threat
#9as an aside, I got my ham radio licence because of my interest in long distance microwave mesh networking. there is a group called aredn http://www.arednmesh.org which uses wifi devices modified to run in the Amateur portions of 2ghz and 5ghz to create massive mesh networks. The lack of noise on our allocations means we can make really long connections. I personally have a 50 dollar Microtik dish that makes a 25 mile connection to a backbone node and get about 25mbps. If there are any HAMs that are reading this, or you want to become a HAM it's a fun project that blends computers and radio.
Re: The Backbone of VHF Amateur Radio May Be Under Threat
#10as an aside, I got my ham radio licence because of my interest in long distance microwave mesh networking. there is a group called aredn http://www.arednmesh.org which uses wifi devices modified to run in the Amateur portions of 2ghz and 5ghz to create massive mesh networks. The lack of noise on our allocations means we can make really long connections. I personally have a 50 dollar Microtik dish that makes a 25 mile…
I seem to remember some issues around running anything encrypted on frequencies meant for the public, but I've always been interesting in citizen mesh networking.
Is it legal, or just not enforced?