rjr@mgweed.UUCP (Bob Roehrig) (05/29/85)
qst de k9eui business and ham band sharing proposed! --------------------------------------- will the amateur radio service and the land mobile service make good bed partners? it appears we are going to find out. it also appears that they had better be or it is the hams that will be kicked off the band! like it or not and with little advance fanfare, the fcc has issued a nprn proposing to allocate portions of the 421-430 mhz ham band to land mobile interests in the cities of detroit, cleveland and buffalo. this action is proposed to alleviate business band congestion caused by the proximity of the canadian border restricting use of both the 470-512 mhz and the 800 mhz business bands. the commission wants to open 204 new business band channels each in detroit and cleveland and 114 channels in buffalo. manufacturers noted that this represents a potential market of more than 48,000 radio units. ge produces a land mobile product line retailing between $1,000 and $4,000 for export to canada and the middle east, which operates in the 421-430 mhz band proposed for the three u.s. border cities. motorola also makes land mobile gear for this spectrum. a treaty arrangement was entered into with canada to obtain land mobile spectrum relief by an exchange of diplomatic notes on april 7, 1982, allowing both nations to operate their primary radio services in the band 406.1 to 430 mhz along border areas. "this arrangement, coupled with the cooperation of the executive branch," the fcc said, " will permit land mobile use in portions of the 421-430 amateur band in detroit, cleveland and buffalo." the executive branch cooperation had to do with releasing spectrum reserved for us military radar. the legalities of this arrangement are cloudy to us since the us arrangements clearly hold the 420-450 mhz band in the united states to be allocated to "amateur" - secondary only to government radiolocation. the region 2 itu allocation, however, is to the fixed, mobile and radiolocation services. the nprm proposing land mobile and amateur sharing reads: "we do not propose to change the amateur allocation. amateurs would have to avoid causing any interference to land mobile because we propose to make land mobile a primary service. if land mobile systems with 30 mile operating ranges and located within 25 miles of the center of these cities are to be practical, they must be protected from interference by a buffer of at least 45 miles." "if the secondary allocation is not sufficient, we would consider prohibiting amateur operation in the 421-430 mhz band within approximately 100 miles of the center of these cities. we specifically seek comments on this alternative." the fcc said that they could prohibit amateur operation should the need arise by adding language to footnote ng-135 stating that the amateur service is prohibited in certain counties in ohio, west virginia, pennsylvania and new york, and in the areas enclosed between these counties and line "a". this proposal was a real shocker and "came out of the blue" with no advance warning! via the w5yi electronic edition, from compuserve (relayed by wa9trg)
ptb@Mitre-Bedford (05/30/85)
Is there comments allowed on this one? Anyone know what the comment deadline is?? Peter Baldwin, WA1SNH
jhs%Mitre-Bedford@d3unix.UUCP (05/30/85)
I think I saw 28 May listed as the deadline for comments. However, if they are like everybody else, if it gets in on Monday, they might read it. This one is serious and we should do all we can. -John S., W3IKG