FCC Orders Amateur Access to 3.5 GHz Band to “Sunset”

Ham on Mars?

 

got it stuck in my now man thanks.

 

Any chance we could preemptively give 75 meters to some group or business as long as they took all the knuckleheads with them.? I'd even write a check to support that effort! Or trade 75 to get back 3.5ghz or something productive.
There must be some value to the rudeness and gall bladder nets there that could be used to trade bandwidth/better the hobby. Get creative hams! The behavior that goes on does not seem to be any kind of a way to defend our hobby. I wonder when the day will come at some fcc hearing where they'll use a recording of the "chumps on the air net" to make their case for why the public good is not served by the stupid stuff on some bands....

 

When the FCC created CB and took 11 meters from hams, if you talk to some real OT's you will find that what was going on on 11, migrated to 75, so 'knuckleheads' will always be with us.

 

The FAA spent millions in the 1980's to upgrade their nationwide microwave link system, replacing tube type Collins microwave, klystron based transmitter and receivers, with used but refurbished and overhauled AT&T FR8 microwave gear. An additional planned for use besides inter-FAA ATC Center comm and backup to phone lines, was to offer a secure system to other govt. agencies. The plan to allow others to use it for their telco and comm needs was shutdown as a conflict of the govt. competing with a commercial vendor. I would expect the military's plan to develop a 5G network may meet the same wall if in any way it competes with a commercial company. A federal govt. that focused on social promotion without a background in FAA systems, created a staff in DC that had no clue what the microwave network was doing, decided it was all not needed, and terminated the program, no in house back up to telco, and several months later, the Memphis Center went dark due to a cable cut, where before, they would have still been in control of things.

 

I agree UHF/VHF are dead, i live in the twin cites of Minneapolis/ St Paul and find no one to talk to, have called on several repeater's different times of the day and all i get is silence/

 

To me the 3cm band is used for maritime Radar as is the 10cm as well. I happen to know this as a retired Merchant Marine officer when we used on a 24/7 basis.

 

It's a shame the FCC has limited VHF/UHF activity to FM repeaters.

The last time I got on 2m, there was plenty of activity. I called CQ for a summit and found myself on the receiving end of a pile up (a new experience for me). The next day, we activated another summit nearby and had a similar response. For the rest of the day while lounging around camp, there was consistent non-SOTA activity on 2m. Between my buddy and I, we had several random non-SOTA QSOs that weekend. No repeaters were harmed.

Chris

 

Since when?

 

That was sarcasm. With the way some folks equate repeater activity with band health, it's as if VHF/UHF was strictly limited to repeater operations.

Chris

 

When are we going to get access to 8m like lots of other places already have??

 

Back in the early days of radio, hams DID homebrew their own equipment.
They'd scrounge parts from old television sets, old tube radios etc.
Wherever they could find parts. Now today, you can buy kits online and
call that homebrew. How many hams today actually design and build their
own equipment? As far as 3.5 ghz goes, I've never been on that band, but
that doesn't mean there aren't other users who do use that band.
Back in the 1970's when CB required licenses, my father's callsign was
KYH-0398 and the the fee was $20. A lot of people cluttered up the band
which was 23 channels in those days with made up callsigns or flat out
didn't use callsigns at all because there were so many scofflaws on the
band that the FCC couldn't enforce it anymore and basically made CB
radio license free. With movies like "Convoy", "Smokey and the Bandit" and
"Handle With Care" along with Radio Shack showing commercials for CB radio
on television, CB radio use exploded. This led to a lot of people making
modifications to equipment to get "sub channels" and "upper channels".
CB'ers lamented Christmas when kids got walkie talkies on CB channel 14.
Then the walkie talkies got their own frequency of 49.860 Mhz AM.
So, who still uses CB in their car these days? Who still has a set
of walkie talkies on channel 14? (I do, Star Trek Communicators.)

How many hams still use autopatch to make a call?
How many hams still have a real landline phone? (Not VOIP)
When was the last time you used a payphone?
When was the last time you made a collect or person-to-person call?
When was the last time you made a call that involved an operator?
When was the last time you gave a phone number as Murray 3 1234?
When was the last time you bought a paper map at a gas station
to plan a trip?
When was the last time you bought a CB radio?
When was the last time you filled up at a station called Signal Oil?
(OK that last one is really old. Got that one from old time radio.)

The point is, everything I've just stated while still technologically
possible, the autopatch except for really remote areas with a repeater
has been replaced by the cellphone, as have landline phones and payphones.
Maps have been replaced by GPS, and named phone exchanges were practically
gone since the 1960's.
CB radio has gone back to the truckers.
A side fact is, I've watched Ice Road Truckers and see ham equipment.

Now, the other tired old saying "When all else fails."

Yes there will be storms etc where landlines/cell will go down, but
within 3-5 days, companies brought in portable cell towers or got
existing ones up and running within that time.
Sure, things were down for a while, and hams provided communications
and handled traffic until things got back to some sort of normal.
We are very resourceful and can patch things together to get a message
through when normal channels go down, but the fact is, systems today
can return to working status faster than they did in the 70's etc.
So, how bad IS the loss of the 3.5 ghz band? Really? I'm curious to
know how many hams this will impact. Can we not modify the 3.5 ghz
equipment to work on another band? After all, we ARE supposed to know
SOMETHING about how radio works right?
While I don't agree with our loss of frequencies, it does boil down to
numbers. I don't know what 5G will do for me. Currently, I have 4G
and can barely get cell service in my apartment. Will 5G make a difference
I don't know. I don't want to see any more of our frequencies and bands
go to commercial interests. Then again, what is the point of having our
frequencies if we don't use them? Here's a good example. The 145.33
K7NWS repeater used to have a weather net. As the late N7VIQ Ermanno
would say. the net was provided as a public service.
Guess what? Ermanno is SK, and after moving back into the area that
is covered by K7NWS, the weather net is gone. I put a call out over
the repeater and was told the net was disbanded due to "lack of interest".
Why? The little weather widget on our cellphones can give us the weather
whenever we want to know, 24/7, no weather net needed.
Has technology made amateur radio and the skills we've learned obsolete?
If you ask the younger generation teens-30's, they'll look at you as if
you have 3 heads and ask, what's ham radio? Is that still a thing?
I for one am glad hams still innovate, we have new modes like FT8,
things like APRS, other digital modes and I am also pleased to say that
even though I am rusty and slow, CW is still a thing.
As I said, I never used 3.5 ghz as I never had the equipment for it.
I do have 0-30 mhz, 2 meters and 70 cm equipment, and honestly, I would
hate to see those bands go to commercial interests. I know this is long
winded, but I was licensed in 2003. I still love the hobby, but I also
have kept up my emergency communications training. Why when I have a
"phone" in my pocket? Three words. "Just in case." Silly of me? Probably.
Maybe I'm old, but young at heart. Is ham radio still fun for me? YES!
And that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

--KD7YVV

 

The loss of 200 MHZ (!) , the 9cm band, is a major step in the re-allocation of Part 97 primary and secondary allocations over the next ten years.

I first publicly warned about this likelihood 15 years ago. In that time, modest but innovative use of 9cm arose, but failure to utilize the generous allottment of 200 MHZ spelt future doom for the band.

Failure to use is not the same as 'judgement to lose'.

We could and should have had the 'National Association of Amateur Radio' lobby initially and primarily for a sliver of that allocation, moving forward.

Failure to do so has set a precedent for legal procedures, IMO, by other parties, to seek and succeed at getting other Part 97 allocations above 145 MHZ. Its fish in the barrel : they just need to show--easily-- that any given band isn't living up to the mission of Part 97, AND the 'users per MHZ' are so low that there can be no defense.

The ARRL-NAAR has, IMO, taken us down a dangerous path that cannot be reversed, by not fostering and enabling by emphasis (by showing in its publications) use of ALL Part 97 allocations--especially at microwave--and then asserting we need a full spectral allottment when evidence is to the contrary.

Failure to lead has led to a failure to succeed.

It is also evident that (perhaps) ALL prior versions of PRB-1, with an emphasis on 'band replacement', are essentially dead. ARRL members need to decide (and I am one) whether such future efforts, despite the minority and demonstrable legal talent of the ARRL board, are worth the high cost with no outcome. MO. yours may differ.

 

In a Nutshell ' Change is the only Constant '
G3SEA/KH6

 

I know my last response was a long one, but I wanted to show
a few examples of how technology has marched on since I was a kid.
I guess for older folks, I do know for me, change isn't something I'm
fond of. I don't know how many hams used the 3.5 Ghz band, and I don't
know much about the equipment used, but can't that equipment be modified
to work on another band?

--KD7YVV