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

Re:You'll miss them in a disaster

[Rinisari]

If /. had upvotes, I would give you one.

It's the HAMs -- the MacGuyvers of the radio world -- who all we computers geeks will turn to when the shit goes down. We could get packet radio up and running in days together, and have our own twitter.

Ignores the public safety role of radio amateurs

[Bruce Perens]

We've seen time and time again that the public-safety services are not themselves able to provide sufficient communications operators to handle an emergency, and that they aren't able to improvise communications systems to meet the needs of an emergency that takes out infrastructure. That's what hams are for. One of the things they do with that spectrum is build and practice their own systems, so that in an emergency they are ready.

And let's not forget all of the technical advances that come from Amateur Radio, and its unique uses in education - how else can individuals work with space communications, software-defined-radio, etc. All of the other options are company-controlled.

In California, we already have a problem on those frequencies due to the PAVE-PAWS system at Beale Air Force Base out by Yuba City. Surprisingly, it can receive hams in the San Francisco Bay area - on a UHF band where I wouldn't expect that distance - and we have had to reduce power on most of the repeaters in that band to protect the military's space-warning services. If the band were to be sold, it would not be available for commercial users in much of California.

But we have a right to be sick of all of the folks who look at our frequencies with dollar signs in their eyes.

Re:But will we?

[neorush]

I live in Northern New York where there isn't even cell phone coverage. In 1999 there was an Ice Storm that put most people in 3 counties without power and phone for SEVERAL WEEKS in the winter time. There was no way for emergency services to communicate from even town to town because of the terrain and the reliance on repeaters. I sat in a firehouse one town over for 2 weeks with my rig and relayed information from ambulance to ambulance and town to town. This included communications for departments like the state police. You would be amazed how well prepared we were, and how unprepared your average government agency is. In fact we are now routinely called to participate in disaster training exercises because of that storm. Hams are an integral part of emergency communications where I live. Losing 70cm would suck.