On Fri, 18 Mar 2011 21:22:32 EDT, Bill Horne
wrote:

I'm confused: why does a spectrum auction at 700 MHz affects hams? I
didn't think we had a dog in that fight.

The original "take away from the broadcasters" chunk of 700 MHz was
for Public Safety and commercial broadband, the so-called "D Block".
The FCC under Congressional pressure was to auction off the
commercial portion - Public Safety is not auctionable. The PS folks
(my company's clients) pressured the Commission that they needed all
of the D-Block, and two other 20 MHz chunks separated by 30 MHz
between them had to,be found to compensate for the loss of auction
revenue from D-Block.

It was Rep. Peter King (R-NY) who introduced a bill to chop up the 400
MHz spectrum and auction it off to compensate for the loss of D-Block
revenue. It's not law yet and the FCC has to play it cool.

Guess what? 420-440 MHz is really US Government spectrum - we hams
are there "by sufferance" (secondary users). "But the hams still can
use 440-450" True. That's where most of our repeaters are. No SSTV.
No experimentation......Strike One.

The companion chunk would be 450-470 MHz. Public Safety and all the
Industrial 2-way users!!! Broadcast Remote Pickup!!! Plenty of
services with lots of leverage. Strike Two.

Some of us think that those choices were recommended to Rep. King
"untouched by human brain". Was it NTIA? Maybe they need better
spectrum managers there.

Stay tuned and hang on!
--

73 de K2ASP - Phil Kane

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

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