Bill Horne wrote on Tues 6 May 2008 00:54

... I don't believe it was an accident that ham allocations in
shortwave bands survived during the era before geostationary satellites,
when there was pressure from other governments and from corporate users
here to carve out larger portions for broadcasting or commercial use.

There is considerable history of frequency allocations available
at the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) website. Some
of it is free for download or perusing. The ITU-R handles largely
civil radio allocations but also takes into account military uses.
Mass-volume messaging just on HF bands by common carrier services
were already established in the latter half of the 1930s. That is
also explained in the 'Collins Sideband Book' by Bruene, Shoenike,
and Pappenfus. The migration of mass-volume messaging from HF to
microwaves via commsat and, later, high-speed optical fiber cable,
were done to avoid the ionospheric disturbances common to HF.

WARC-79 (World Administrative Radio Conference of 1979) yielded
more bands to radio amateurs worldwide. There were some added
expansions to 'SW BC' but, by bandwidth count, amateurs got more
than broadcasters. The '40m interference' issue of broadcasters
versus amateurs took until WRC-03 (World Radio Conference of 1953)
to achieve a compromise that won't be complete for a few years
from now. Broadcasters were granted new bands in HF at WRC-03.
In the last four decades there have been MANY changes to HF use
by many radio services...and FAR MORE above 30 MHz. The migration
of common carrier radio services from HF provided more space for
individual fixed radio communications on HF. There is still
room for other radio services on HF but few want it.

The international radio use of the spectrum above 30 MHz over
the last half century has been so extensive it could fill a small
book to contain its changes. Those who have access to the huge
table of frequency allocations in Part 2, Title 47 C.F.R. over
the years can infer what they want. It covers civil and
government frequency allocations from 9 KHz to 300 GHz.

The migration of common carrier services from HF took about a
quarter century to complete. It didn't happen overnight. The
number of slots on the geosynchronous orbit were filled over a
decade ago.

'Shortwave' broadcasters like their migration to satellite
relay because it relieves the outages occurring on HF as the
ionosphere changed. That's unfortunate for SWLs who were
accostumed to essentially free programming but is a definite
improvement of the fading and other effects on purely HF paths.
Successful tests of DRM (Digital Radio Mondial) have been
going on for at least four years. Adoption of DRM as a
standard 'SWBC' mode is delayed by such listeners not desiring
to obtain DRM-compatible receivers. Technically this digital
broadcasting scheme has worked out very well.

So far there have been NO auctions established for US civil
radio services below 30 MHz. The HF ham allocations can be
said to be safe from takeover. Speculating on HF being
gobbled up by capitalists is more fantasy than reality.

Long-haul mass-messaging services have been increased by
'repeaterless' fiber optic cables (amplification pumping and
signal reconditioning only required at land stations). One of
the longest today is the double 4 GPS optical fiber carrying
digital signals running from the UK through the Med, under
the Indian Ocean, around southeast Asia, then north to Japan.
At 10 bits per circuit, each 4 GBS path can carry 100,000
circuits simultaneously...and full-duplex at that. There
are many of other optical fiber paths in the world, over
land and under water.

USA radio amateurs were denied a full band on 60m due to
failure of proponents from recognizing that many fixed HF
frequencies in-around that band had already occupied those
spots for decades. USA hams got only five separated
channels, each just big enough to carry one SSB voice
channel. I see that as just poor planning by the ARRL who
petitioned for it.

HF on the EM spectrum has far fewer users (other than hams
now than it did four decades ago. The US military uses it now
for backup (with limited traffic handling) as a sort of last-resort
contingency use.

Of course, US hams use HF 'extensively.' For hobby purposes.
It is NOT 'pioneering the [HF] airwaves' (that being done in
the 20s and 30s) but some like to imagine they are doing that.

AF6AY