the guy is not advocating shutting down all broadcast TV. He simply points out that we have 60+ analog TV broadcast channels, and that we're only using a handful. (honestly, how many channels do you get?)
You know, what really frosts my biscuits is not the waste of the television broadcast spectrum but the hideous waste of "PRIME" RF real-estate between 225 and 400 MHz, the so-called military aircraft band.
This is 175 MHz of the best spectrum money can't buy...the equivalent of 29 TV channels. By comparison, commercial aviation worldwide is spread over only 28 MHz, and of that, only 18 MHz is for voice transmission.
Yes, of course the military needs more room than commercial aviation (and a greater need to hide), but current encrypted digital spread-spectrum comms would EASILY cut that requirement to a third of what it is now, if not more. I refuse to believe that a 60 MHz-wide chunk of frequencies is insufficient for mil-air comms, especially those that frequency-hop (a very spectrum-thrifty mode).
That leaves about 115 MHz to be re-farmed into other services.
LMR is always scrambling for more room, so take land-mobile off the crowded 851-869 MHz band and stick them down in the proposed-to-be-vacated mil-air spectrum, say from 350-400, adjoining the current LMR 406-512 band.
THEN you have the ability to grant the Cell industry all sorts of spectrum around 850.
Conventional analog cell uses from about 869-896 MHz (inputs 824-851 MHz). Give the whole 800-900 MHz range to the CTIA bunch. This would also once and for all solve the iDEN (Nextel) interference problem with Public Safety LMR at 800 -- once LMR has hibernated into the vacated mil-air portion of the spectrum.
There are downsides to this too, however...
Of course, this would require massive re-co-orination of the resources at something like the WARC (which is happening this year, thus too late to do anything now). This is a 10-15 year plan we're talking about.
Not just that, but you'd also run into the problem of who would pay to move the LMR guys off 850 down to 300, or wherever.
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the guy is not advocating shutting down all broadcast TV. He simply points out that we have 60+ analog TV broadcast channels, and that we're only using a handful. (honestly, how many channels do you get?)
You know, what really frosts my biscuits is not the waste of the television broadcast spectrum but the hideous waste of "PRIME" RF real-estate between 225 and 400 MHz, the so-called military aircraft band.
This is 175 MHz of the best spectrum money can't buy...the equivalent of 29 TV channels. By comparison, commercial aviation worldwide is spread over only 28 MHz, and of that, only 18 MHz is for voice transmission.
Yes, of course the military needs more room than commercial aviation (and a greater need to hide), but current encrypted digital spread-spectrum comms would EASILY cut that requirement to a third of what it is now, if not more. I refuse to believe that a 60 MHz-wide chunk of frequencies is insufficient for mil-air comms, especially those that frequency-hop (a very spectrum-thrifty mode).
That leaves about 115 MHz to be re-farmed into other services.
LMR is always scrambling for more room, so take land-mobile off the crowded 851-869 MHz band and stick them down in the proposed-to-be-vacated mil-air spectrum, say from 350-400, adjoining the current LMR 406-512 band.
THEN you have the ability to grant the Cell industry all sorts of spectrum around 850.
Conventional analog cell uses from about 869-896 MHz (inputs 824-851 MHz). Give the whole 800-900 MHz range to the CTIA bunch. This would also once and for all solve the iDEN (Nextel) interference problem with Public Safety LMR at 800 -- once LMR has hibernated into the vacated mil-air portion of the spectrum.
There are downsides to this too, however...
Of course, this would require massive re-co-orination of the resources at something like the WARC (which is happening this year, thus too late to do anything now). This is a 10-15 year plan we're talking about.
Not just that, but you'd also run into the problem of who would pay to move the LMR guys off 850 down to 300, or wherever.