No new sub-bands for digital voice

The FCC has made it clear that it's not going to make specific spectrum available for digital voice relay operations.

This after the agency recently turned away a petition from two California hams who wanted the creation of an additional 300 kHz wide subband for D-Star and other digital voice operations on the two meter band.

The FCC's Bill Cross, W3TN said:
"We received a request from two hams out in California. What they wanted was for us to (allow) a little more spectrum - 300 KHz - to be authorized for repeater stations. Currently, repeaters can use 3 of the 4 Mhz in the 2 meter band.

"They claim that additional spectrum is needed for repeater stations because some amateur repeater stations have begun (using) certain digital communications protocols and digital voice operations that are incompatible with the existing analog operations because digital voice users are unable to determine if the desired frequency is in use by an analog station. Inadvertently, they say, digital systems can cause harmful interference to analog systems.

"They also claim that coordinating groups have been unable to separate analog and digital voice repeater operations because the available repeater spectrum on the 2 meter band is fully occupied by existing analog systems.

"Now, as I mentioned, repeaters are prohibited from using two 500 Khz segments of the 2 meter band in order to minimize harmful interference to other amateur service stations. Believe it or not, some licensed users use 2 meters for things other than repeater operation. The petition was turned down because their request would likely result in increased interference to other operations such as Packet, moonbounce, and simplex type operations. ."

So how do you make room for digital voice repeaters where no channel pairs are available? Cross says that’s up to the ham community and the nation's frequency coordinators to work out and not the job of the FCC.

Cross also came down on those hams who hold a coordination but have no system on the air. He stopped short of directing that coordinators act to free up channels where a coordination exists but their is no repeater using it. None-the-less, his message to the coordination community and to those who have repeaters only on paper came through loud and clear.

Source: ARNewsline