Doug Smith W9WI wrote:
On Thu, 12 Jun 2008 02:13:43 -0400, vshah1010 wrote:

In Feb 2009, all TVs will become digital. As a result, analog TV
spectrum will become available.

It will be auctioned off. Chances are it will go to big companies,
making their monopoly even bigger. These frequencies would be better

This spectrum has already been sold. Except for the 24MHz worth that's
being reserved for public-safety communications.

Some of the new uses have already been implemented. For example,
Verizon's "V-Cast" (video broadcasts to mobile phones) uses the spectrum
formerly occupied by TV channel 55. A number of TV stations have already
closed their analog operations on this channel and adjacent channel 56.


The 50s and 60s channels have already been auctioned. (The
36 MHz of 60s auctioned recently brought about $650M/MHz)
However, the analog turn-off will vacate most of TV Ch 2-6,
and most of 7-13. This is the truly valuable channel space,
and will be fought over tenaciously. (174-216 MHz) There
is also a proposal to allow devices to selectively "seek"
out vacant channels in any given locality to use for low
power applications, without interfering with television.
This works OK with digital TV channels which may be
adjacent, but the problem is that analog LPTV and translator
stations are being allowed to stay on the air indefinitely,
which means that adjacent channels with strange digital
signals filling the bandwidth could spill over causing
interference to an analog TV signal.

The odds of the FCC "giving" any of this spectrum to hams,
or other so-called "citizens" uses are slim since the FCC is
mandated by Congress to auction off all non-public-safety
spectrum recovered from other services.

Rick T. - W7RT