[CW] Two New Amateur Bands

[D.J.J. Ring, Jr.]

The Rules become effective in 60 days.See below - 73 de N1EA
FCC Issues Amateur Radio Service Rules for 630 Meters and 2,200 Meters: from
The ARRL Letter on March 30, 2017
View comments about this article!
<http://www.eham.net/articles/38932#comments>

*New Bands! FCC Issues Amateur Radio Service Rules for 630 Meters and 2,200
Meters:*

The Amateur Service will officially get two new bands in the near future.
The FCC has adopted rules that will allow Amateur Radio access to the 630
and 2,200-meter bands, with minor conditions. A Report and Order (R&O
https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-17-33A1.pdf) was released
on March 29. The new rules become effective 30 days following publication
in The Federal Register. The R&O, which also addresses several non-Amateur
Radio issues, allocates the 472-479 kHz band (630 meters) to the Amateur
Service on a secondary basis and amends Part 97 to provide for Amateur
Service use of that band as well as of the previously allocated 135.7-137.8
kHz band (2,200 meters). The R&O also amends Part 80 rules to authorize
radio buoy operations in the 1900-2000 kHz band under a ship station
license.

"It's a big win for the Amateur community and the ARRL," ARRL CEO Tom
Gallagher, NY2RF, said. "We are excited by the FCC's action to authorize
Amateur Radio access for the first time on the MF and LF spectrum."

The FCC said the Amateur Radio service rules it has adopted for 630 meters
and 2,200 meters allow "for co-existence with Power Line Carrier (PLC)
systems that use these bands." Utilities have opposed Amateur Radio use of
the MF and LF spectrum, fearing interference to unlicensed Part 15 PLC
systems used to manage the power grid.

Amateurs operating on 472-479 kHz would be permitted a maximum equivalent
isotropically radiated power (EIRP) of 5 W, except in parts of Alaska
within 800 kilometers (approximately 496 miles) of Russia, where the
maximum would be 1 W EIRP. Amateurs operating in the 135.7-137.8 kHz band
could run up to 1 W EIRP.

The FCC is requiring a 1-kilometer separation distance between radio
amateurs using the two new bands and electric power transmission lines with
PLC systems on those bands. Amateur Radio operators will have to notify UTC
of station location prior to commencing operations.

The FCC also placed a 60-meter (approximately 197 feet) above-ground-level
(AGL) height limit on transmitting antennas used on 630 meters and 2,200
meters. The bands would be available to General class and higher licensees,
and permissible modes would include CW, RTTY, data, phone, and image.
Automatically controlled stations would be permitted to operate in the
bands. More details soon, on the ARRL website.

*Source:*

The ARRL Letter


*FCC Issues Amateur Radio Service Rules for 630 Meters and 2,*
<http://www.eham.net/forums/post/Articles/238610>

Reply <http://www.eham.net/forums/post/Articles/238610> by W7ASA
<http://www.eham.net/user/profile/W7ASA> on March 30, 2017 Mail this to a
friend! <http://www.eham.net/forums/mailto/1?id=238610>


So, the 600 meter,7 KHz wide "BAND" is going to be a huge disappointment
under these conditions:

" ...permissible modes would include CW, RTTY, data, phone, and image.
Automatically controlled stations..."

ATTENTION ARRL - Narrow segments should be for narrow modes, so that more
than one station can operate at a time. Voice or automatic & highspeed data
will kill this.

What a shame -

>Ray


*RE: FCC Issues Amateur Radio Service Rules for 630 Meters an* Reply
<http://www.eham.net/forums/post/Articles/238611>
by W1ITT <http://www.eham.net/user/profile/W1ITT> on March 31, 2017 Mail
this to a friend! <http://www.eham.net/forums/mailto/1?id=238611>
Power Line Carrier, PLC, has operated under Part 15 unlicensed service.
This FCC order is both historic and troubling, in that it is the first time
that a Part 15 service has been legally protected from interference by a
licensed service (Amateur Radio). How long will it be until some other
unlicensed "service" will demand protection from legitimately licensed
operations? The essence of the Part 15 concessions is that, in exchange for
not having to be licensed, one accepts the possibility of interference
without recourse.
I'm happy that we got a couple of new allocations, but the FCC got this
wrong, and the ARRL was too eager to agree to conditions that may well come
back to bite us.
  *RE: FCC Issues Amateur Radio Service Rules for 630 Meters an* Reply
<http://www.eham.net/forums/post/Articles/238612> by KK5JY
<http://www.eham.net/user/profile/KK5JY> on March 31, 2017 Mail this to a
friend! <http://www.eham.net/forums/mailto/1?id=238612> >> This FCC order
is both historic and troubling, in that it is the first time that a Part 15
service has been legally protected from interference by a licensed service
(Amateur Radio). How long will it be until some other unlicensed "service"
will demand protection from legitimately licensed operations? <<

And not only that, but those wishing to operate on these bands have to
preregister their transmitter locations, so if there is ever interference,
their QTH will be the first ones visited, regardless of the actual source
of the QRM. Further, they are assuming that within 1km, the probability of
QRM is too high to even allow the parties to try to coexist.

This is just another 60m. The rules are so silly and limiting that the band
is essentially useless to all but the most patient and aggressive QRPers,
who also happen to live a long distance away from power lines.

I really don't mind ARRL's approach of getting a foothold in a new band
first, then after some number of years, getting expanded privileges based
on good behavior of the ops. That said, we don't seem to be making a lot of
progress on that front. 60m is still a mess, and the new ARRL plan for 60m
is even messier. And the R&O that is the subject of this thread included a
new allocation for QRM sources in the top half of 160m. That's backwards.
Let the radio buoys operate somewhere else. What's wrong with the 100kHz
*above* 2MHz? If ARRL is going to continue this policy of incremental band
acquisition, they need to follow through and actually get incremental
improvements to the bands.


=====================

73

DR
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