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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."
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.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
If they are using it so heavily, surely they won't give it up easily, no?
Peter King has struck me as one of those guys who can rationalize away everything he does. Sure, to some people, it would seem like creating a Public Safety network by hobbling the military's usage of the 420-440 MHz block would seem highly inconsistent, but not so for Peter King. Same thing with his current hearings on the how American Muslims are becoming radicalized. Some people would think that it would be highly hypocritical of him to open public hearings on radicalism in Islam considering that for decades, he was a supporter and backer of the Irish Republican Army, a terrorist organization that killed 3500 people in 3 decades and were involved with Libyan terrorists funded by the Gaddafi regime. But nope, Peter King sees no hypocrisy at work.
What an awful person.
My postings are informational and does not constitute legal advice. Act on it at your risk.
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.
PAVE-PAWS uses 435Mhz. In fact, there are regulations regarding ham use, power output, and directionality of transmissions in that frequency range by ham radio operators within 150 miles of those installations.
No. They will not auction that off. Peter King will sit down and STFU.
Everybody gets what the majority deserves.
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.
Bruce Perens.
I hear this a lot, that Ham radio is useful in disasters, but can anyone give some examples?
I live in an area that's prone to flooding, this year especially. Every year, local hams provide the communications and logistics for sandbagging operations. A few years ago, there was also a chemical spill and some guys I know ended up acting as go-betweens for the police and fire department as well. They were put on the radio because of their experience.
On another note, a lot of hams are involved in storm spotting. Granted, there's not a lot they can do other than report but sometimes it does give people enough warning to get out of the way of a tornado.
They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it's not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance. - Terry Pratchett
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.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
Yep. Amateurs understand they are "secondary users" of this spectrum. And it's always a good idea to defer to primary users who have attack helicopters and radio-direction-finding equipment... ;)
Just junk food for thought...
It's not dying out any longer. We're heading toward having 700,000 U.S. hams due to the final elimination of the code test (you're welcome) and the fact that it's technically getting more fun due to software radio, etc. That's more than we've had in a very long time.
Bruce Perens.
You could, y'know, use a fucking search engine and answer the question yourself, but then you wouldn't get a chance to be a belittling piece of shit on /.
Hey pot, I don't think you and kettle have been formally introduced yet.
They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it's not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance. - Terry Pratchett
I was in a natural disaster a while ago where pretty much all communications went down (power was out, phone poles knocked down, taking out Internet connections and landlines, cell towers offline or overloaded) except radio stations and HAM. The HAM guys relayed their message to a HAM operator at the radio station who would broadcast requests for help.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
All amateur radio operators reading about this should be incensed. This is a major grab of our bands for public safety and they already have a very generous portion of the radio spectrum and don't need to steal ours. They already have 450-470 as public service bands and these are only used for that in major metro areas along with 700-800 MHz.
In 90% of the country public safety uses VHF high and low bands (150 and 30 Mhz, respectively) and that is adequate for their needs. The same is true for amateur radio with the exception of 700-800 MHz, where VHF is primarily used throughout the country and 440 MHz is mostly used in areas of higher urban/suburban density. In these areas, the 2 meter bands are saturated with large, old repeaters and the 440 MHz band is the most vital and dynamic band around, it's where the more technically savvy types tend to hang out, whereas the older systems on 2 meters are usually older folks talking about what they are dying of. Due to saturation of 2 meter repeaters there is no opportunity for growth or change there, if someone wants to put up a new system then 440 MHz band may be their only choice. Also, most of the dinosaur 2 meter machines are multi-receive site networks, and the remote receivers are linked in the 420-430 MHz band. The other service that would be mostly impacted is Amateur Television (ATV) which is mostly in the 420-430 MHz band, that would be completely eliminated.
There is a nice website set up that will automatically generate a letter of objection, tailored to your local state representative automatically. It's nice and easy you just enter your callsign and it looks it up and generates an auto-addressed letter ready to print and sign. The link is here. Calling all hams! This is really important, please do it today!!
-- You are in a maze of little, twisty passages, all different... --
Not necessarily. See this Wiki article for some recent examples http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amateur_radio_emergency_communications. The main thing is that even in the U.S. it's possible to lose cell phone and land line communications over large swaths of territory quickly depending on the emergency. Amateur radio operators have groups who intentionally train to step up with equipment and their own expertise to fill the communication void that can be created when the main forms of communication go down. You can also check out ARES at http://ares.org/ for more information. Emergency trained ham operators also often have training in severe weather spotting (tornado, etc) and basic first aid training. Those interested often participate in training on how to coordinate large amounts of communication and large numbers of different groups effectively with the ability to pass priority information faster than updates. All in all, when things are rough, these folks quickly and quietly step up, help get the job done, and then go back to their own (not their parents' :P) basement.
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.
neorush
The ARRL has a page set up against HR-607 as well as sample letters. Apparently, if you send them to Chwat & Co (info on previous link(s)), they will hand-deliver it to Congressional office.
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).
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
I am a "real professional" I work on an ambulance, I have an extensive background in search and rescue, and I'm a ham radio operator.
I have amazed the military, the local police forces, and the head of disaster services for our province with what I can do on ham radio, things they can't do on their multi-million dollar comm systems when they're working properly. In a disaster, when all the repeaters that are required for the fancy digital radios stop working, emergency services always come back to the hams.
Your truck is a good first step in emergency preparedness, but there's never a guarantee it will work as planned, or that it can get to where you need it, or that you won't need it in more than one location at the same time. One mobile repeater won't cover the site of a large scale disaster, and outside responding agencies may not even be able to use it.
The only "holier-than-thou I-know-everything" types are the ones who think they are infaliable and could never require any outside assistance. If you are truly involved in emergency services I suggest you go back to your most basic introductory class where they discuss knowing your limitations, operating within them, and not being afraid to call for help when you actually need it. This is part of every single course I have ever seen for every emergency service qualification, it's tragic that many people forget it, because it's simple stuff like that that costs lives, sometimes the victims, and often the responders.
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'.
Looking at space, radio, science and computing from a 'down-under' amateur enthusiast perspective.
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.
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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
- Tjp
I am in wallow with my inner money grubbing capitalistic pig. ... Oink!