KB6NU's Ham Radio Blog

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In amateur radio, who has the authority?

Posted: 28 Dec 2015 12:43 PM PST
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Â*This morning, I received an e-mail from a reader. He wrote:

Who sets the band plans within a country ? Â*USA? How much authority does
the IARU have on individual countries? On the USA?

I replied:

Well, there are band plans and then there are band plans. Here in the U.S.,
the FCC sets regulations that say where certain modes can be used within a
certain frequency band. Those carry the force of law. For example, on the
40m band, Extra Class operators cannot operate SSB below 7.125 MHz. If Â*you
operate SSB on 7.120 MHz, you can be cited for doing so.
The ARRL and the IARU take that a step further by recommending that certain
modes be restricted to certain sub-bands. For example, the FCC allows CW
and digital mode operation to all operators in the 7.025 7.125 MHz band.
The ARRL, however, suggests that digital operators restrict their
operations toÂ*7.080-7.125 MHz.
I use the wordÂ*suggest because the ARRL and the International Amateur Radio
Union (IARU) have no real legal authority. The IARU is just a group of
representatives from national amateur radio societies like the ARRL.
Internationally, its the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) that
has the power. They are an organization of the United Nations, and by
international treaty are responsible for things like frequency allocations
and licensing requirements. They hold conferences every three or four
years. According to their website, World radiocommunication conferences
(WRC) are held every three to four years. It is the job of WRC to review,
and, if necessary, revise theÂ*Radio Regulations, the international treaty
governing the use of the radio-frequency spectrum and the
geostationary-satellite and non-geostationary-satellite orbits.. The latest
WRC was just held this year.
The IARU sends a non-voting representative to the WRCs, but they are there
only in an advisory/advocacy role. Fortunately for amateur radio, many of
the official delegates to the WRC are also amateur radio operators.
As an aside, the WARC bands30m, 17m, and 12mare so called because those
bands were allocated to the Amateur Radio Service at the conference in
1979. At the time this conference was called the World Administrative Radio
Conference or WARC.



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