King Wants To Sell Out Ham Radio

An anonymous reader writes "Rep. Peter King (R-NY), Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, has introduced HR 607, the 'Broadband for First Responders Act of 2011,' which has been referred to the House Energy and Commerce Committee (which handles telecommunications legislation). The bill would create a nationwide Public Safety broadband network using the so-called 'D-Block' of spectrum in the 700 MHz range for Public Safety use. But to pay for it, he wants to sell off 420-440 MHz, currently heavily used by the military, satellites and Amateur Radio operators."

Comments

You'll miss them in a disaster

[elrous0]

Laugh at the old Ham guys all you want. When a real disaster hits and the infrastructure goes down, I bet you'll be going to them and asking for their help.

Won't the military have something to say about it?

[phyrestang]

If they are using it so heavily, surely they won't give it up easily, no?

International agreements

[trainman]

Well that could be fun considering a lot of the HAM radio spectrum blocks are internationally recognized and used. Go ahead, sell it off, give it to someone else to use, I'm just north of your border, and my government hasn't proposed selling off that spectrum (yet). So I'm sure the private purchases of that spectrum will just LOVE when we all continue to key up on those bands (or the satellites already in orbit continue to transmit in to your borders on those frequencies).

Someone needs to inform this congressman of the realities of how spectrum allocation works.

Re:He can rationalize anything

[spun]

King claims the IRA never killed an American. As if that should make a difference, but it isn't even true, the IRA has killed Americans.

Re:He can rationalize anything

[Sonny Yatsen]

Peter King supported, financially and politically, people who murdered and maimed women and children. He has no moral high ground.

Re:But will we?

[postbigbang]

You ask a lot of questions.

We'll pick Katrina for an example. ARRL members swung into action and delivered the only real communications after phone went down and sat dishes were blown into surrounding counties. But this is a big example, smaller ones are equally as important when a tornado or hurricane just dropped by.

It's a hobby, and hams take things seriously with battery packs, survival gear, links into local emergency services, and knowledge of what works, what doesn't, and why.

Think of hams as radio hackers. Some are heroes, others are hobbyiests, some are both.

Re:But will we?

[natehoy]

Of course, once you put all the responders onto an encrypted channels in the 700MHz range, amateur radio will no longer be able to help

I'm not a HAM enthusiast, but I know my fair share, and rest assured that availability of long-range communications is ALWAYS helpful.

Even if everyone in all emergency services has the same band of 700mhz radios and can talk to each other (unlikely, since they'll all be from different lowest-bidder manufacturers), it's often impractical due to the sheer volume of personnel. Having people who know how to communicate quickly and efficiently is important. Having people at the disaster site where shit's going down is important. Having people who can maintain equipment in addition to using it is important.

Keep a couple of HAM sets and someone who has a clue about them at your emergency center, and you can get field reports from places your officers can't go. You can talk to each other if and when your official encrypted channels are overloaded. You can get messages out to not only other departments, but other continents. You can coordinate with the general populace (at least to some extent) because just about everyone's got someone less than a mile away who has a HAM radio.

Plus, you've got some people who can build and maintain their own radios. Not many first-responder personnel are going to be very useful if they drop their radio into a puddle, but more than a few advanced HAMsters can probably rig something up with baling twine and bubblegum to keep the lines open to some extent (exaggeration, of course, but they've probably got enough spare parts to whip you up an extra radio, or keep a half dozen radios running).

Bad receivers are your issue.

[brindafella]

Just because someone designs a receiver (as a TV is) that is *poorly* designed or built, so that it is affected by "out-of-band" signals (eg Amateur Radio transmissions) does not mean that the Amateur (or owner of another transmitter) is at fault. There are many examples of radio design where there is an assumption that poor / cheap design is countered by the remote possibility of a nearby and legal 'interference'.

I think the use trumps the bill

[Tjp($)pjT]

Unless this funds replacement of all the licensed users equipment, hams, and police, fire etc. And takes into account treaty restrictions for the use (420-430 MHz is already contentious near the north / Canadian border with some restrictions) this is a non-starter. But the BIG BIG one is Satellite use of the bands. You can't bop over to Radio Shack and get a spare transceiver or transponder for an alternate frequency and send jimmy to the electronics shed to install it. So that is a HUGE expense to replace.

So sure allocate some of the public interest wireless use spectrum that used to be TV spectrum over to public interest and emergency responders, but taking the 440 band from HAM use and alternate emergency services and satellite use is just wrong and costly. If they do this I want my brand new unused (and all my old) 440 gear replaced as part of the auction requirements. I am sitting on about 8 thousand dollars in just my shack and car (and motorcycle) at the moment. And I'll be upset and it will affect my voting pattern ...