For those in the US...it looks like we may have yet another reason to write letters to our congressman and senators. It looks like there's a bill that's been submitted that will take the 420-440MHz HAM bands and put them up for auction. This affects the majority of the UHF RC systems.

http://www.arrl.org/hr-607

On February 10, 2011, Rep. Peter King (R-NY), Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, introduced H.R. 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 addresses certain spectrum management issues including the creation and maintenance of a nationwide Public Safety broadband network.
As part of that network, the Bill provides for the allocation of the so-called “D-Block” of spectrum in the 700 MHz range for Public Safety use. HR 607 uniquely, provides for the reallocation of other spectrum for auction to commercial users, in order to offset the loss of revenue that would occur as the result of the allocation of the D-Block to Public Safety instead of commercial auction. H.R. 607 lists, among the bands to be reallocated for commercial auction within ten years of the passage of the Bill, the paired bands 420-440 MHz and 450-470 MHz.
The inclusion of most of the Amateur 70-cm spectrum as one of the replacement bands is a major problem. The 420-440 MHz band is not Public Safety spectrum and should not be included in any spectrum swap of Public Safety allocations.
While the ARRL and all Amateurs support the work of Public Safety and recognize their need for dedicated spectrum which would promote interoperability, the ARRL vigorously opposes HR 607 in its present form. HR 607 is a direct threat to our limited spectrum and the ARRL encourages all amateurs to appropriately voice their opposition to this bill.

Posted this a few days ago, but didn't get any responses. I really do think this could be a major issue if it does go through. Note that they say it will take effect within 10 years... so we would have some time to transition, but right now no similar product exists in other bands.

Originally Posted by Acorns

Posted this a few days ago, but didn't get any responses. I really do think this could be a major issue if it does go through. Note that they say it will take effect within 10 years... so we would have some time to transition, but right now no similar product exists in other bands.

Sorry, did a quick search but didn't see anything.

They're just going to chip away at the amateur frequencies till nothing is left...

This has been an ongoing thing with the ARRL. There were many times when the FCC took away HAM bands and from 1942-45 all HAM bands were shut down completely. Luckily, the 70cm band is very popular among HAMs. You can bet the ARRL is fighting this one iwth everything they have.

The real question is whether our current equipment would get grandfathered in (not likely), we would get compensated (also not likely), or whether we'd just be out of luck (most likely). You can bet the 900MHz band is up and coming.

-Alex

Typical GOP move, diminishing useful public services for corporate profit. They are also attacking PBS. Is there a petition somewhere, or should we start one? I couldn't find one, I'd start one but I don't have any experience with such things.

The best thing is to send a letter to your representative. You'll normally get a token reply, but it at least let's them know what their constituency is thinking. Also, some who writes letters is also someone who is usually someone active civically, and therefore someone who votes and likely gets others to vote, so usually they really do listen to people who write in.

You can use this link to find out how to contact your representative: http://www.house.gov/zip/ZIP2Rep.html

they listen to the people with money. only.

http://forums.qrz.com/showthread.php...ur-radio-bands

Originally Posted by volto

Typical GOP move, diminishing useful public services for corporate profit. They are also attacking PBS. Is there a petition somewhere, or should we start one? I couldn't find one, I'd start one but I don't have any experience with such things.

Volto, perhaps you should research the issue just a bit more before knee-jerking your way to ignominy. The FCC has been trying this very plan for YEARS now, with varying levels of support from both sides of the aisle. This is neither a "D" nor an "R" issue, and it CERTAINLY isn't an "EEEEEVIL Corporations" vs "Poor Helpless and Downtrodden people" issue.

If anything, this is more of the same typical government overreach. The Govt tried to auction off the D block and guess what? NOBODY WANTED IT except for the Emergency service people, who couldn't afford the billions the FCC was asking.

So the FCC hatched the plan of giving away the D block to the emergency services, but to "offset losses" from giving that band to ES, taking away the HAM radio block and selling THAT instead. There are multiple interests, private and public that have been salivating over the HAM (and Family Band) blocks for decades. The FCC has gotten both D and R legislators to back the plan, but never more than a few. This issue has always been DOA in Congress due to the desire to not kill off HAM radio.

I have no doubt that the arrl will fight this attempt off too.

Oh, and always remember Volto: "Any government large enough to give you everything you want, is also large enough to take away everything you have." Don't just blindly trust that government is automatically virtuous and corporations are automatically evil. That kind of simplistic thinking will cause you no end of trouble in life.

I can see why you may have gotten the wrong impression from my post, and I think you read too much into it. I agree that the government is way too large, and I don't expect or trust the government to "give" anyone anything. However, with the insane amount of tax that we pay, we should expect something in return, instead of all that money going toward bloating huge corporations (ahem, bailouts for example), and them chipping away at our freedoms. I didn't know this legislation has been proposed before, do you have a link?

P.S. I realize there isn't a dimes worth of difference between the two parties, but Republicans introduced this bill (at least this time). Hence my singling out the GOP.

power is addictive, what do you expect. give them power and they want more and more. this will not end unless you force them to be 100% transparent and give the people 100% power. Finally with internet and technology this is very possible. We should be the ones choosing what laws and bills are passed, everyone should have an online voting account that is 100% secure, violations or hacking would be high treason and everyone gets to vote on anything and everything proposed by the people and/or the government. tada, problem solved.

Originally Posted by volto

I can see why you may have gotten the wrong impression from my post, and I think you read too much into it. I agree that the government is way too large, and I don't expect or trust the government to "give" anyone anything. However, with the insane amount of tax that we pay, we should expect something in return, instead of all that money going toward bloating huge corporations (ahem, bailouts for example), and them chipping away at our freedoms. I didn't know this legislation has been proposed before, do you have a link?

P.S. I realize there isn't a dimes worth of difference between the two parties, but Republicans introduced this bill (at least this time). Hence my singling out the GOP.

Ahh. Ok. My apologies, I did indeed misread your post. In that case I think we are largely in agreement. Personally, I would rather they simply tax me less. Then there won't be as much for them to play with. I'm an "Originalist", generally speaking, and think that we simply have too much government pretty much everywhere.

Originally Posted by KillerCut

power is addictive, what do you expect. give them power and they want more and more. this will not end unless you force them to be 100% transparent and give the people 100% power. Finally with internet and technology this is very possible. We should be the ones choosing what laws and bills are passed, everyone should have an online voting account that is 100% secure, violations or hacking would be high treason and everyone gets to vote on anything and everything proposed by the people and/or the government. tada, problem solved.

A nice thought, but as an IT guy, I can tell you that the day when we have that kind of technological ability won't come in our lifetimes. There is NO SUCH THING as the "Unhackable" computer system. Stuxnet showed us that. Seriously. Compromising Nuclear Centrifuge control systems. And you think a cheaply made VOTING MACHINE can be made hacker proof? In the words of Daffy Duck; "It is to laugh."

And the punishment of High Treason? Do you honestly think that the perpetrators would be CAUGHT? They can't catch (Or refuse to arrest) the 10 cent crooks loading the paper ballot rolls with dead people NOW. Add in technology to a group of bureaucrats that think the internet is "A Series of Tubes"? The hackers would have a field day and we would be watching President Nader being sworn in with his Vice President Mickey Mouse!

No. Representative Republics are the single best government concept the world has yet thought of. Sadly, we have gotten well away from the original intent of the founders, which is why we are having so many problems now. We need to go back to our roots, governmentally, and correct the errors of the early 20th century.

I agree with KillerCut actually, as another IT professional I believe it is possible to have a 'near' unhackable system. The answer is in peer to peer technology, where every system involved is a part of the entire system. Read about Bitcoins (bitcoin.org) for an example of how this could work, although I haven't given it much thought, I think it is possible to have a legit voting system based on similar technology. A quick search revealed that this possibility was explored in 2005 but I couldn't find the result of the experiment. Search for "A Distributed Network Architecture for Robust Internet Voting Systems".

ok fine, make it a phone system then. you call, enter your social security number, voice recognition, you can only call from a personal non-prepaid line registered on your name, etc.. same thing goes, if someone interferes, steals someones identity, its high treason...
you know how some website make you type letters from an image to make sure its a real person, you can do the same thing over a phone, the voice recognition software doesn't look for what you are saying, but who is saying it, i'm sure its out there. these days it probably wouldn't take more than 1 or 2 16 year old computer nerds to come up with the software.

but honestly the online system would work, you wont need a huge team of it security guys to monitor activity to notice anything suspicious since its a really bad crime (high treason), so they will be a small and highly mobile unit, and would be able to catch the bad guy quick.