On Wed, 7 May 2008 13:48:04 EDT, "Ivor Jones"
wrote:

It's the principle of the thing that annoys me, though. Even where we are
primary users, such as 2m, we can claim *no* protection from interference,
even if the cause of said interference shouldn't be there.

Things must have changed since my initial training in international
radio regulation in the mid-1960s where the British Post Office (the
forerunner of the RA) was held up as a model of "we'll lock you up if
you don't have a licence to operate there" - and the French were
pointed out as an example of "the ordinary citizen needs a radio as
much as he needs a machine gun".....hams were a grudging exception,
and of course when cellphones became available, everyone got one
because they knew that cellphones were not radios, right? g

Then again, the FCC in the US - where I ultimately spent most of my
professional career - was also very involved in "catching bad guys".
The epidemic of unlawful CB operations of the 1970s and 80s - for
which most of the world's governments never forgave the US - and an
unfortunate shift in regard to what the government's obligations were
- changed all that.

Notwithstanding the historical precedents of military-civilian sharing
of frequency bands, granting commercial interests licenses to operate
in the amateur bands is basic bad regulatory policy. All of us
old-time regulation professionals knew that as an article of faith.
The new crop is guided more by the buck (or the Euro, or the quid)
than by what good regulatory policy is.

As far as the military goes, I learned early in the game that de
facto the military of any country can operate on any frequency that it
so desires if (1) it doesn't interfere with anything operating in that
country and it (2) doesn't identify. If it wants to play the
gentleman game the country will notify the operation to the ITU
Radiocommunications Bureau (ITU-R) which now does what the
International Frequency Registration Bureau (IFRB) did before ITU
reorganization. Whether the information is accurate or not is an
exercise left for the listener.
--

73 de K2ASP - Phil Kane

From a Clearing in the Silicon Forest
Beaverton (Washington County) Oregon

e-mail: k2asp [at] arrl [dot] net