Fcc explores use of emergency aerial communications

[W9GB]

Old concept. Idea was to fly a plane equipped with repeaters in a big circle over an area affected.

Actually, this concept was used from 1940s through 1960s ... here are those private and public programs:

Midwest Program on Airborne Television Instruction (MPATI)
Ford Foundation & Purdue University
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midwest...on_Instruction
One of the two aircraft would go aloft for six to eight hours at a time; take up a twenty minute figure-eight station centered over Montpelier, Indiana (35 miles north of Muncie, Indiana) at an altitude of 23,000 feet. From this position the range of transmission was approximately 200 miles in diameter; stations transmission included both Chicago and Detroit metropolitan areas.

StratoVision
In 1945 the Glenn L. Martin Co. and Westinghouse Electric Corporation advocated television coverage of small towns and rural areas as well as the large metropolitan centers by fourteen aircraft that would provide coverage for approximately 78% of the people in the U.S.A.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratovision

Operation Blue Eagle (1966 - 1972) -- Vietnam War, Saigon area
The entire project was under the control of Captain George C. Dixon, USN.

[N6KZB]

"Operation Blue Eagle (1966 - 1972) -- Vietnam War, Saigon area
The entire project was under the control of Captain George C. Dixon, USN."

Thanks W9GB, couldn't remember the programs moniker. (Vietnam, 2 years, 4th Inf and MACV).

Adios from Baja

[KB4LVW]

The Feds may have found another way to spend stimules money! Have all first responders buy new radio equipment to include the new frequences that the may annex from us. Beware of the FCC or for that matter the IRS when they are only here to help! Frank Kb4lvw

[KD8IGK]

Here is what Jennifer Manner of the FCC said when I asked more questions about this subject. I find it interesting to see how this will be driven from the FCC. Notice that the FCC is not dealing with funding. That may explain a lot of how a Federal Agency works, seems a little dysfunctional to me. Build up a proposal for spending money on a new initiative, then they do or do not get the added funding to their budget. So spin up a proposal that few have asked for and see if it gets legs for funding it later on. Seems like a waste of time for the FCC that could be better spent elsewhere.

The item has to be published in the federal register, but you can provide comments through ECFS now. Brian, whom I have cc'd can help you with providing information on how to do that.

On the funding, that is not an area we are looking at. The FCC is focused on the RF environment; not the funding piece. That is not within our jurisdiction.
Jennifer Manner
Jennifer.Manner@fcc.gov