News from Geneva

During the past week, (Oct 11-15th), delegates from countries around the world have been meeting in Geneva to plan work on a couple of items of interest to most amateur radio operators.

Users of virtually all the radiocommunication services which operate in the 3 to 30 MHz range, are concerned about potential interference from broadband power line communications or BPL. Those users who normally depend on being able to operate at low signal to noise ratios are even more concerned. These include shortwave broadcasters, amateurs, some of the long range fixed service users such as National Defence and NATO, and of course the safety services like aeronautical mobile.

One of the Study Groups of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) is proposing to issue a report summarizing the studies which have been done to back up these concerns, and will probably follow that up with an international Recommendation on acceptable interference levels. Such a Recommendation would not be binding on individual countries unless incorporated into the Radio Regulations at an World Radio Conference, but most member countries of the ITU would feel a moral and ethical obligation to follow it. First steps in this process took place during the past week, and with a draft report promised by the end of the year.

As usual, Radio Amateurs, through the IARU, participate in the meetings and help in the work to ensure that our concerns are included in any such Report or Recommendation.

A second topic of interest is a report being prepared on possible new allocations between 250 and 1000 GHz, and an IARU proposal for several new amateur bands in that frequency range. While most of us will never operate in those bands during our lifetime, history has shown that the upper limit of the useful radio spectrum continues to climb, and as technology advances, prices of components and equipment continue to drop. It may well be that young people getting their tickets today will thank us 20 or 30 years from now for our forward thinking in establishing a claim on these bands.

The first time that such new bands may be approved, would be at a World Radio Conference tentatively scheduled for 2010.

Ken Pulfer VE3PU

Source: Radio Amateurs of Canada

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