Subj : ARRL Defends 902-928 Amateur Radio Band
To   : QST
From : ARRL de WD1CKS
Date : Thu Sep 12 2024 02:49 pm

09/12/2024

ARRL� The National Association for Amateur Radio�[1] has filed comments
[PDF][2] with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) urging that the 902 -
928 MHz amateur radio band be protected. ARRL joins hundreds of licensed radio
amateurs who utilize the band in opposing a proposal from NextNav Inc., a
licensee in the 900-MHz Location and Monitoring Service (LMS), to completely
reconfigure the 902 - 928 MHz band and replace the LMS with high-powered 5G
cellular and related location services.

Read more about NextNav's proposal on ARRL News (8/15/2024)[3]

ARRL's comments, filed by our Washington, D.C. Counsel on behalf of ARRL
members and radio amateurs, point out several problems with NextNav's request.

"Contrary to NextNav's assertions, the band is extremely crowded with millions
of devices and transmitters in operation in multiple services, including the
Amateur Service. Adoption of the proposal would result in either massive
interference that would prevent proper operation or displacement to other
bands. The difficulty is that there are no other bands known to be available,
and in fact, some of the Amateur operations in this band are here because they
were displaced when a portion of the 420 - 450 MHz band North of "Line A" was
closed to the Amateur Service some years ago. Others were displaced from the
same band when new Federal Government defense radars were initiated and
continued Amateur secondary operations would have interfered with their
operation."

Pushing amateur radio out of heavily used spectrum is a risk to public service,
ARRL argues in the comments.

"When space can be found in this band, Amateurs employ it to establish
wide-area voice and some television signal repeaters. Others are actively
experimenting with digital mesh networks and associated control links. These
networks are a testbed for digital design and experimentation, but also are
available and used for back-up emergency communications purposes. Still others
operate low power beacons for propagation research. Weak signal work - tuning
and experimenting to communicate over the longest paths with the least power -
also is popular and leads to improvements in equipment."

Mesh networks are becoming increasingly useful in emergency communications.
Just this past�week, the ARRL Utah Section announced[4] that dozens of Amateur
Radio Emergency Service� (ARES�)[5] volunteers are working to expand the mesh
network around the state. "The needs of participating agencies have evolved to
require more than analog voice and low-speed data modes," said ARRL Utah
Section Public Information Coordinator Scott Rosenbush, K7HSR. "High-speed mesh
networks using AREDN� [Amateur Radio Emergency Data Network] software will
allow amateur radio to play a larger role in supporting these agencies in
emergencies." The ARRL Utah Section already has a five-county mesh network in
place. The proposal from NextNav make it more difficult to operate networks
like this one.

"Under NextNav's proposal, the much higher-powered transmitters would be
ubiquitous and operating 24/7. The resulting interference would effectively
exclude many of the current Amateur operations that are operating in the
902-928 MHz band."

The FCC docket remains open for reply comments from the public until September
20, 2024.� As of September 6, over 800 comments have been filed by Amateurs and
others who use this spectrum.� The comments can be viewed at this link:
https://tinyurl.com/ypxh583p[6]. Click here for an ARRL Guide to Filing
Comments with FCC.[7] ARRL will continue to defend amateur access to this and
other threatened amateur allocations.


[1] http://www.arrl.org/
[2] https://www.arrl.org/files/file/News/ARRL%20Letter/2024/09-12/ARRL902928Comments.pdf
[3] https://www.arrl.org/news/arrl-urges-protecting-the-amateur-radio-902-928-mhz-band
[4] https://www.arrl.org/news/arrl-utah-section-expanding-emergency-communication-capabilities
[5] http://www.arrl.org/ares
[6] https://tinyurl.com/ypxh583p
[7] https://www.arrl.org/arrl-guide-to-filing-comments-with-fcc

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