FCC proposing to take more of Amateur Radio band space.
This time, removing most of our access to 60 mtr band, and reducing ERP to about 9watts, down from 100 watts.
60 meters was found during WCARES testing about 4 years ago to be one of WCARES primary HF bands, to be highly effective for Emcomm use. Even for NVIS, surprisingly. We have that designated as one of our channels for HF on our ICS217.
This could effect County, District, Region wide comms in emergency situations, if implemented.
See this article on ARRL website for more information.
https://www.arrl.org/news/arrl-advocates-for-radio-amateurs-as-fcc-proposes-changes-to-60-meter-band
Terry Jones, K5LGV
DEC, District 7
I posted somewhere (still looking) about the FCC moving ham radio to a different portion of the 60 meter band. I’ll provide the link when I find it, but it didn’t mention anything about reducing power to 9 watts ERP.
73
John Denison
KD5YOU
This isn’t good news if they carry it out. We will also keep watch on this.
Joe Craft KI5IQE
DEC, District 6
Does this mean new “channeling” where current radios won’t transmit?? That means another rig on an already crowded desk.. my financial dept will not approve of this message..
Clark Pennington
KC5BHM
College Station, TX
The link provided in the email stated that while they were removing 4 of the 5 “channels,” they were replacing it with a 15 kHz continuous stretch that includes the frequency of one of the channels.
So, the big negative hear is potentially the reduction in power and not the loss of band.
It does. Actually it says 15 watts EIRP. Because a dipole has 2.1 dBi of gain over an isotropic radiator the power into a dipole has to be reduced 2.1 dB. That’s where 9 watts comes from. This is a very poor way to specify power at HF where the antenna is mounted over the earth and therefore has a ground reflection. If you really wanted to obey the letter of the law you would also have to reduce your power into the dipole by the reflection gain which could be as high as 6 dB. This would put your actual maximum power at just over 2 watts. The way the rule is written is very ambiguous and would not hold up under scrutiny.
Steve WA5FRF
2 watts it is lol. Hope you doing well.
Thx Steve.
Joe Craft KI5IQE (Lakehills)
DEC, District 6
From ARRL:
Currently, radio amateurs in the US have access to five discrete channels on a secondary basis: 5332 kHz, 5348 kHz, 5358.5 kHz, 5373 kHz, and 5405 kHz. Users of these channels are limited to an effective radiated power (ERP) of 100 W PEP.
The FCC proposes to allocate 15 kHz of contiguous bandwidth between 5351.5 5366.5- kHz on a secondary basis with a maximum power of 15 W EIRP (equivalent to 9.15 W ERP). This allocation was adopted at the 2015 World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC-15).
A few khz here, a few mhz there and before we know it we’re out of business.
KF5OXQ
Here is the ARRL Bulleting announcing the proposed change.
K5AVY
ARRL General Bulletin ARLB006 (2023)
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ARRL General Bulletin ARLB006 (2023)
The American Radio Relay League (ARRL) is the national association for amateur radio, connecting hams around the…
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](http://www.arrl.org/w1aw-bulletins-archive/ARLB006/2023)
This isn’t good news if they carry it out. We will also keep watch on this.
Joe Craft KI5IQE
DEC, District 6
Just run the legal max or less as necessary for the contact, and don’t worry about it. Unless you are intentionally trying to mess with another operator or frequency, the FCC is not coming to your home, and set up a trailer and measure your antenna efficiency. They have better thing to do than worry about plus or minus 5 watts.
Terry,
I’m not happy to hear that either but we as amateur radio operators seem to be our worse enemies on 60 m. Army MARS uses one of the five frequencies to communicate to amateur radio operator during our training exercises. This process has been very successful between Army MARS and the Amateur community.
But there are some amateur operators that will not relinquish the frequencies as required when asked to do so by a government agency. They want to carry on their “rag chewing” on 60 meters because they have figured out it’s not crowded and the NVIS propagation is great. So I learned at a very young age that if you abuse it, you lose it.
Again I really hope we can keep this relationship with the Amateur community on 60 meters. Because when and if we have a “Bad Day” in our country it would be nice to know we can work together on 60 meters.
Regards,
Ken/W5KAM
Well said.
What many of our fellow hams don’t know or want to ignore is that they have access to several frequencies on a “secondary” basis. Just because we have access doesn’t mean we “own” the frequencies.
As Grandma used to say… “a few bad apples spoils the whole basket!”
dale
W5WI
US hams are less than 1mm in number and FCC / commercial / gov’t interests feel free to take our access as desired. ARRL must ups its lobbying game. WE need to recruit more hams or we may be the last of the few. I value my RF.
73
KF5OXQ
We need to vote the Democrats out of office!!!
73,
Tem
WT4DX
…WE, need to get in our politicos hair, ears, and up their wazoos to convince THEM of our value. The Congress generally has little interest in FCC doings unless it involves nonsense re online soc media bs. Drop in on your local congresscritter, intro yourself to his chief of staff and become a subject matter expert.
I’m not that SME yet but will be. I have contacted various pols on assorted items of policy, usuallly get a bs acknowledgement that says nothing and commits to no action.
I do not appreciate that every aspect of life now involves gov’t oversight and control, but I will not go gently into that goodnight.
Time for an adult bev (though not one from InBev group)
KF5OXQ
Agreed… It’s a simple process, and it takes all of about five minutes.
Here are my Congressmen in my Montgomery county district
https://www.cornyn.senate.gov/contact-john-cornyn/
https://crenshawforcongress.com/contact/
73,
Tem
WT4DX
In my 20 plus years in EMCOMM I have seen politics raise it’s ugly head. The door was opened by the WRC making it’s decision, the FCC has a track record of blindly following their lead. That being said our position needs to be solid on sharing the allocation and then using the facts of all the SHARES, MARS, and FEMA nets and exercises also real world events such as hurricanes, winter storms wildfires etc. Pull every ICS 309 etc. your group has made, after action report all of the paper we generate and then send copies of all of it to every Senator and Representative on every committee that has purse strings on the FCC. At the end of the day the agencies we serve may the ones that lose because of this policy. Everyone stay calm and help with evidence of the work we do helping in times of need, neighbors taking care of neighbors.
Timothy Lewellen WX5GC Dist.9 Stx
Timothy Lewellen WX5GC Dist.9
Folks,
The league is working on its formal response to the FCC and deciding on its course of action. At this time it would be more beneficial if we hold off on making any direct comments to the FCC and await a formal coordinated response plan. Director Stratton is planning a zoom call in the near future to discuss the issue and our planned responses. We request your patience at this time.
Please share as appropriate
Regards,
Lee Cooper, W5LHC
WGD Vice -Director
Thank you for this notice Lee.
Best to you and John in your response preparations.
Terry Jones, K5LGV
District 7 Emergency Coordinator
WCARES Emergency Coordinator
RACES County Liaison Officer
Williamson County, TX
512-426-2351
EM10co
Tim / et All,
From Tim:
Pull every ICS 309 etc. your group has made, after action report all of the paper we generate and then send copies of all of it to every Senator and Representative on every committee that has purse strings on the FCC
Actually, pulling any information you have on responses we have done, esp where 60 mters was used, is not a bad idea but, instead of sending it to a Senator or Rep perhaps send it to me? I will see that it gets to our legislative group where it can be used to help make our case to the FCC. Thanks!
Lee, W5LHC