[CTSARA] FW: {Disarmed} Reply from Congressman James Himes

[Jonathan Solomom]

Jon-

All good points, except:
  1) The FCC has proven that once you give a little, you all but given away a lot.  Just ask the broadcasters. It's not about whether we use it or not, it's the principal that they are starting to encroach on Amateur frequencies.  Airwaves (how ever you want to define it) belong to the people.  This is reasoning behind the "public service" programming on broadcast TV.  They are required to "give back" to the community from which they "borrow' the frequencies.  The FCC is forgetting that.
  2) There is an article out there that shows that the reallocation isn't even really necessary.  It makes some sense when you read it...  http://www.tvtechnology.com/article/119794 

Again, it's the principal.  There is definitely a lot of misinformation out there about this bill, and little updates being shared. 

'73s
JS

Sent from my iPad

On May 2, 2011, at 10:53 PM, Jon Perelstein <jon.perelstein at gmail.com> wrote:

> Well let's face it -- the response Jon Shapiro got was worded the way it was
> because it's considered inappropriate for congresscritters to actually say
> to their constituents "I don't give a damn what you think".   Himes, like
> most congresscritters, probably doesn't have the foggiest notion of what
> this bill is all about.  He's simply been told by the House leadership that
> he should vote for it because corporate interests need that bandwidth to
> replace the bandwidth being taken away in the 700 MHz segment for use by
> emergency services.
> 
> Congress is certainly not going to let 5,000 hams and about 100 little-used
> repeaters in the whole country stand in the way of their re-allocating
> 420-440 to the commercial interests.  Especially not when each of the bill's
> major backers (on both sides of the aisle) stands to make $1-$2 million if
> the bill goes through (all perfectly legal and above-board, by the way).
> Given his low rank in the pecking order, Himes himself may not be in line
> to be one of the beneficiaries on this bill, but at this point he's been in
> Washington long enough to know that if he doesn't play along on a bill like
> this, he won't ever be in line to be one of the beneficiaries on a bill like
> this.
> 
> How many repeaters do you know of that are located in the 420-440 segment of
> the band?  Hint, the ARRL band plan does not provide for any repeaters in
> that segment of the band.  It's all TV, EME/satellite, and some SSB/CW and
> only a very small percent of hams have ever operated up there.  A couple of
> years ago, CQ magazine estimated that there might not be more than 5000
> people playing with the technologies that are represented in the 420-440
> segment.  It would be a bad mistake (which the ARRL is making) to think that
> someone hasn't already informed Congressman King of that fact.
> 
> Hams haven't helped themselves with some of the silly claims they've made
> either.  For a brief period, the ARRL was trumpeting how -- in an emergency
> -- loss of 420-440MHz could impact "... areas of the West that constitute
> 1/4 of the nation's population ...".  That was based on a claim by the High
> Desert Repeater Association, which runs a chain of repeaters through
> northern California, eastern Oregon and eastern Washington State, Montana,
> Idaho, and northwestern Nevada.  They were literally claiming that their
> linked repeater network would be the only way to get messages passed
> throughout the western 1/3rd of the country (I guess the invention of HF
> hasn't reached those places yet).  Just a few little problems with their
> claim:
> 
> 1.  The population of the entire area covered by those repeaters is less
> than the population of Connecticut.  And that's only if you count the "big
> cities" like Spokane, Butte, Boise, etc. (none of which is actually served
> by that repeater network).
> 
> 2.  Out of all the repeaters and all the repeater links in their network,
> only one was in the 420-440Mhz range, and that was a simplex link between a
> repeater in South Bumtruck ID (population 41) to a repeater in West Snowshoe
> MT (population 117 when the moose are mating).  As Congressman King pointed
> out, what the lobbyists spend on one lunch for him would more than cover the
> cost of buying a slightly smaller blanket so that the smoke signals would
> resonate in the 440-450 part of the band instead of the 420-440 segment.
> 
> Another ham created a letter generator.  Just enter your name, address, call
> and it would generate an automatic letter.  Only one problem -- the letter
> protested the reallocation of the 440-450 segment of the band, but that
> segment isn't up for reallocation.  It's pretty stupid to send a letter to a
> congresscritter complaining about something that isn't happening, but that's
> exactly what was happening.
> 
> We as hams haven't used that portion of the band, and we haven't made it a
> key to our operations..  There are other ham bands that are equally ignored
> (e.g., 220) and if we don't start using them, we will wind up losing them.
> 
> Jon
> 
>> Subject: FW: {Disarmed} Reply from Congressman James Himes
>>> 
>>> 
>>> I wrote to Rep Himes regarding the 440 MhZ band allocation. As ARRL
>>> requested us to do. I find the response somewhat generic, and does
>>> not answer my concerns.>
>>> 
>> 
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