Regarding the statement:-
"Gulp. If this is indeed 10 GHz and not 10 MHz, it sounds like
we have another band in trouble. The U.K. has just lost most
of 10 GHz to wireless telephone stuff... :-( "
I wouldn't say that we have lost "most" of the band in the UK as the
allocation was 500MHz wide and we have had 150MHz removed. That's 30%
of the band. Whilst I agree that any loss is not welcome it doesn't
help to make emotive statements as the authorities will come back with
figures, just as I've done, and shoot you out of the water.
Better to say things like "significant loss" or "valuable amounts" as
this can be defended by arguing that 30% is a significant amount of an
amateur band (just think if the UK lost 30% of its 7MHz band, which is
only 100kHz wide!) and it must be "valuable" otherwise the other user
wouldn't be interested in having exclusive primary access to the band.
The loss in the UK was to the Radio Fixed Access service, I'm not sure
if this is "wireless telephone" but we used to share the band with
Mercury Communications Ltd, who had some fixed links. In fact when
they got rid of the equipment several amateurs benefited by being able
to convert it to a very good transverter system and was useful for
people upgrading from simple wideband FM to CW/SSB equipment. So
commercial interest isn't always bad.
I'm not sure why the government decided to grant exclusive access, we
already share other bands, like 430MHz, with other users but I guess
that they were worried about interference problems with the increase
in activity on 10GHz from amateurs.
I appreciate the support, but think that sometimes we do ourselves no
favours in the words we choose.
What's this to do with QRP? Well nearly all the gear, at present, in
use on 10GHz is QRP levels and the precedent that it sets is, in my
opinion, dangerous for all amateur allocations. Over here even
primary allocations are not "protected". In other words we cannot
claim any protection from intruders by right, so our licensing
authorities are not obliged to do anything about interference to
amateurs. We also have a lot of secondary allocations, where the
situation is even worse as we are expected to move on request of the
primary user.
This is an area where we must all help one another and not just take
the view that "I don't use that band so who cares?" as the next band
might be yours. Which is why I was surprised when the ARRL said that
the threat from the Little Leo satellites was an internal US matter
and didn't want support from other national societies. The effects on
one countries allocations can have an affect on anothers, either
directly from interference to the allocated user in the other country,
or as being seen as a "good idea" to the other countries licensing
authority, as we now see from the reported threat to a microwave band
in the US. (Allowing for the inaccuracies in the report about which
frequency was being considered).
If the RSGB took the same attitude as the ARRL they would say that
interference from the UK to the US on 10GHz is unlikely. However, the
threat to our bands from copycat allocation removal is a real problem.
Regards - Dave (G0DJA)
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