[SFDXA] Cuban Hams can use 60m band

[WILLIAM MARX]

>From QRZ:

Cuban Hams can use 60m band

Faithful to their promise of a new universal 60m ham  band
 in the last WRC, the Ministry of Communications of Cuba approved  this 
January the access of Cuban hams to this new band.

The law approved on January 20 of 2014, from the Ministry  
of Communications of Cuba allows the use of the spectrum between the  
5418 to 5430 Khz, a continuous segment of 12 Khz, this unlike other  
countries that are allowing just channels.

The assignation is as a secondary users as per ITU  
recommendations for region 2, with the emphasis on its use in  
emergencies nets, as Cuba is in the path of the Caribbean Hurricanes  
every year and this band allows a steady communication path for all the 
 island.

The new law sets this band for every day use, but once an  
official emergency is declared by the Cuban State, then the use of the  
band will be restricted to emergency traffic exclusively, ceasing all  
others kinds of use on it.

The new assignation allows SSB, CW and Digital, the  former
 limited to PSK31 and PSK63. All ham categories of the three  existent 
in Cuba can access the band based on a power limitations of 10W  for the
 novices and 50W for the rest; with a note of the relaxation of  this 
power limitation up to 100W tops for all users in emergency  conditions 
as needed for a reliable link establishment.

The access of the hams to this band is not immediate, the  
process involves the request and approval for individual hams to the  
related Authority and the modification of the ham's licence (an  
in-office process of about 1 day), so the band will populate steady, but
  slowly.

Most Cubans hams use commercial radios with full or  
partial coverage of HF bands or even homebrew radios, so the "hardware" 
 will not be a major problem, for a significant percent of Cuban hams  
will be a matter of setting up an antenna for this new band or simply  
tune in his multi-band antenna.

Pavel Milanes Costa CO7WT