Support Growing for Favorable 40-Meter Realignment Plans
NEWINGTON, CT, Mar 6, 2003--With World Radiocommunication Conference 2003 (WRC-03) set to start in just about three months in Geneva, support is growing for two favorable proposals to create a 300-kHz worldwide 40-meter allocation. ARRL and the International Amateur Radio Union (IARU) seek a return to the 300-kHz allocation that existed worldwide prior to World War II but that now exists only in the Americas. Delegates to WRC-03 will attempt to address--and possibly eliminate--the overlap on 40 meters between amateurs in the Americas (Region 2) and broadcasters elsewhere (Regions 1 and 3).
"There is encouraging news," says ARRL CEO David Sumner, K1ZZ, in his "It Seems to Us . . ." editorial set to appear in April QST. He reports that, thanks to the efforts of IARU volunteers and others, more than 30 countries now have gone on record to support either one or the other of two favorable 40-meter realignment formulas. Sumner said more support is needed, but he called the interim head count "a good start."
Most popular among the half dozen realignment schemes outlined by participants at last November's WRC-03 Conference Preparatory Meeting is so-called Method B. This approach calls for a three-stage transition that would begin by allowing Region 1 and 3 amateurs on 7100-7200 kHz on a secondary basis starting in 2005 and end with all ITU regions gaining access to 7000-7300 kHz by the end of 2009--with the top 100 kHz shared with fixed and mobile stations in Regions 1 and 3. Broadcasters would shift upward to 7300-7550 kHz worldwide.
For US and other Region 2 stations, such a change would mean an end to deafening nighttime phone band QRM from broadcasters and the necessity to operate split-frequency to work stations in Regions 1 and 3 on SSB.
Sumner says Method B is now a European Common Proposal with initial support from 17 CEPT administrations--Austria, Denmark, Czech Republic, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Hungary, Estonia, Belgium, Slovak Republic, Netherlands, Switzerland, Ireland, Lithuania, Finland, Poland and Bulgaria. At least three other countries in Africa, Asia, and the Pacific have also expressed support for Method B, he said.
The IARU team now is working to gain the support of additional administrations in Regions 1 and 3 either for Method B or for the similar Method A, Sumner reports. Otherwise identical to Method B, Method A does not include any sharing with fixed and mobile services.
In the Americas, a dozen ITU Region 2 countries last month agreed to support an Inter-American Proposal that's virtually the same as the so-called Method D. Proposed by Canada, Method D would provide 300 kHz worldwide for amateurs by shifting broadcasters in Regions 1 and 3 upward by 200 kHz. Region 2's broadcasting allocation would remain unchanged. In supporting this plan, Canada has been joined by Argentina, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Paraguay, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Colombia, Honduras, and Peru. IARU Region 2 is now working to expand the list of Region 2 countries supporting that plan.
The US so far has taken no position on the 40-meter realignment issue, although it has long supported a 300-kHz worldwide, exclusive allocation for Amateur Radio. At World Administrative Radio Conferences in 1979 and 1992 the US proposed to realign the amateur and broadcasting allocations to provide for a "harmonized" allocation. The FCC WRC-03 Advisory Committee has recommended that Method A be a US proposal, but the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) has not yet agreed.
"Acting on behalf of the federal government users of the radio spectrum, the NTIA has been advocating 'no proposal' from the US, a position that the ARRL is working hard to overcome," Sumner points out. "A small number of federal agencies claim to be concerned that their backup circuits on HF would be affected by an upward shift of broadcasters."
Sumner also calls it "unfortunate" that some broadcasters persist in efforts to link the 7 MHz WRC-03 agenda item with another that deals with the adequacy of broadcasting spectrum between 4 and 10 MHz. Sumner said the broadcasting spectrum item is "a separate issue with an entirely different genesis." He also points out that major international broadcasters continue their shift away from HF. As evidence, he cites a recent announcement by Deutsche Welle that it will drop HF broadcasting to North America, Australia, and New Zealand at month's end.