King Wants To Sell Out Ham Radio 309
An anonymous reader writes "Rep. Peter King (R-NY), Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, has introduced HR 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 would create a nationwide Public Safety broadband network using the so-called 'D-Block' of spectrum in the 700 MHz range for Public Safety use. But to pay for it, he wants to sell off 420-440 MHz, currently heavily used by the military, satellites and Amateur Radio operators."
You'll miss them in a disaster (Score:5, Insightful)
Laugh at the old Ham guys all you want. When a real disaster hits and the infrastructure goes down, I bet you'll be going to them and asking for their help.
Re:You'll miss them in a disaster (Score:5, Funny)
Laugh at the old Ham guys all you want. When a real disaster hits and the infrastructure goes down, I bet you'll be going to them and asking for their help.
Yeah .. but when the world ends [imdb.com], that will result in sending submarines to San Diego to track down morse keys that are being randomly tapped by coke bottles hooked into window shades that are blowing in the breeze
Re:You'll miss them in a disaster (Score:5, Funny)
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IIRC, that was actually a military transmitter they were receiving, not an amateur.
Disclaimer: I only read the book, I didn't see the movie.
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We are so dependent on infrastructure, if we reached that level of disaster, I don't think it'd be a master of "asking" for help.
Reminds me of a client, whose former programmer was a conspiracy theorist. He was stocking up seeds, because he was convinced the economy was going to fail and seeds would be the new currency. However, he was also a pus^H^H^H^H pacifist, and didn't believe in owning guns. If it all hit the fan, the people with the guns would take his seed, one way or another.
tl;dr; Your doomsday h
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sp: "master"="matter"
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Seed stocking is more about preserving genetic variety than anything. We all know the dangers of Big Ag, yet we mock people and call them conspiracy theorists when they do something sensible and stock seeds that can grow plants WITHOUT having to spray them with some kind of activator chemical.
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I think you're missing the bigger picture.
Wheat is one thing. Corn, rice, canola, and soy are another.
Farmers growing from their own seed is great. I commend you for it. Beware, however, that you aren't unknowingly violating some absurd patent on that seed or something. Monsanto, et al has better lawyers than you do.
Besides, this is all just the scary boogie-man stuff. Let's not forget about simply keeping our seeds genetically diverse just because. It seems like a bad idea to me to back ourselves into a
Re:You'll miss them in a disaster (Score:4, Funny)
"I bet you'll be going to them and asking for their help."
Dot Dot Dot, Dot, Dash Dot, Dash Dot Dot - Dot Dash Dash Dot, Dash Dash Dash, Dot Dash Dot, Dash Dot
Re:You'll miss them in a disaster (Score:4, Informative)
Dot Dot Dot, Dot, Dash Dot, Dash Dot Dot - Dot Dash Dash Dot, Dash Dash Dash, Dot Dash Dot, Dash Dot
"Send porn"? You'd probably have to do that via SSTV, not CW.
Side note: if you're sending code phonetically it's di-di-dit dit da-dit da-di-dit ... di-da-da-dit da-da-dah di-da-dit da-dit.
Re:You'll miss them in a disaster (Score:5, Interesting)
If /. had upvotes, I would give you one.
It's the HAMs -- the MacGuyvers of the radio world -- who all we computers geeks will turn to when the shit goes down. We could get packet radio up and running in days together, and have our own twitter.
Re:You'll miss them in a disaster (Score:5, Informative)
I'm 26. I'm not old. Like any hobby there is a mix of old folks and young folks. Sadly us young folks are never heard about because we don't care about the politics and swap meets like the old timers do. We're also busy getting laid and whatnot, too.
To make matters worse, the part of the spectrum that jerk-ass is wanting to sell actually doesn't affect hams too much. 420 to 440 is used for TV and satellite downlinks in the amateur community, and is not used for repeaters or simplex operations. Repeaters and simplex are up between 440 and 450MHz. Us youngin's don't care about ATV whatsoever, and no matter who sells what the satellites will still keep transmitting on 438MHz like they always have.
While we don't care, we SHOULD care. If we let them sell this band off, they will think they can get away with selling, say, 2 meters. If we don't speak up and stop this now, there will be nothing to stop them from trying to sell off more and more of the spectrum, all for a few shiny pennies.
KD4PYR has a script that will generate a letter that you should print and send to your representative. It is located at http://www.kd4pyr.net/HamLetter.htm
I don't know how effective it would be, but, that is the process that we're supposed to go through to tell our representatives that we DO NOT WANT what they are doing. So, tell them.
Re:You'll miss them in a disaster (Score:4, Insightful)
We're also busy getting laid
Suuuuureeee....
You could call me "Dennis"... (Score:4, Funny)
I'm 26. I'm not old.
Well, I can't just call you "man"
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It's not used for FM simplex, but it is used for moonbounce and terrestrial weak signal.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Who says they are 'old'? (Score:3)
Re:You'll miss them in a disaster (Score:5, Informative)
The point is - removing spectrum from them is a bad idea.
Basically - in emergencies, the ham bands already DO get used for emergency purposes. It's on a volunteer basis, but it's almost unheard of for non-emergency hams to fail to vacate a frequency in favor of emergency users.
If you take 70cm away from hams, the end result will likely be:
You gain the band for emergency use (wait, you already effectively had it!)
You lose a lot of frustrated hams - so not only do you effectively lose the other ham bands, you lose a bunch of trained radio operators with emergency experience (or at least emergency training)
Re:You'll miss them in a disaster (Score:5, Informative)
I think you mis-read that bill a little. Apparently, Rep. King wants to set aside spectrum in the 700 MHz range for Public Service emergency use. To make up for the loss of income from auctioning that spectrum, the spectrum in use by HAMs in the 400 MHz range would be auctioned off to commercial interests. So, we set aside some spectrum for first responders, but then sell spectrum already allocated to HAMs for commercial use. We are not taking the spectrum used by HAMs and giving that to the first responders - we are giving it instead to commercial interests.
Somehow, I smell a campaign contribution in all of this...
I think the use trumps the bill (Score:5, Insightful)
So sure allocate some of the public interest wireless use spectrum that used to be TV spectrum over to public interest and emergency responders, but taking the 440 band from HAM use and alternate emergency services and satellite use is just wrong and costly. If they do this I want my brand new unused (and all my old) 440 gear replaced as part of the auction requirements. I am sitting on about 8 thousand dollars in just my shack and car (and motorcycle) at the moment. And I'll be upset and it will affect my voting pattern
Re:I think the use trumps the bill (Score:4, Funny)
You got me thinking on that. I'd mod you informative if I hadn't commented, but let's see. The proposed change...
Lacks common sense? Check.
Costly to implement? Check.
Is not technically sound and violates established procedure? Check.
Sounds like most things that happen when a Congressman tackles a technical subject.
Now, I have to go back to fixing my Internet Tubes [wikipedia.org]
Re:You'll miss them in a disaster (Score:5, Informative)
...the spectrum in use by HAMs in the 400 MHz range would be athe spectrum in use by HAMs in the 400 MHz range would be auctioned off to commercial interests
Every time the government takes away more bandwidth and spectrum coverage from the Amateur Radio Service, it puts everyone in the USA in greater danger of dying in a disaster as it impedes the ability to provide essential life-saving disaster/emergency communications when other communication systems and infrastructure fail..
Any time there's a disaster or emergency where all other communications infrastructure is down, Hams are there providing essential outside communications links to state and national resources outside of the disaster area as well as providing/assisting with local rescue communications & coordination.
All the groundwork and integration into local, state, national, and worldwide emergency/disaster response and relief infrastructure has been done. Officials in charge when emergencies or disasters occur already have plans in place coordinating with amateur radio clubs in nearly every county and state in the USA as well as significant numbers across many nations (most nations??-too lazy to search) worldwide.
Disaster and emergency response departments and officials across the US and in many other countries along with amateur radio operators rehearse emergency response, planning, coordination, and effectiveness every year with an event called "Field Day".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field_Day_(amateur_radio) [wikipedia.org]
This is one thing that *works* in our dysfunctional society, works very well, and has been working for many decades. Best of all, it does it better than anything else that's been tried while having the virtue of having the parts of the system that would cost the government the most provided by civilian volunteers.
Selling off *entire bands* assigned to amateur radio to finance some politician's, special-interest's, or political party's boondoggle is akin to the late paratrooper-trainee that decided to sell parts from his emergency chute to get a tattoo that read "Always Prepared".
I always thought the goal here was NOT to win the "Darwin Award"?
The even-scarier part is that the erosion of bandwidth and frequency ranges available to amateur radio has been going on for decades and has only accelerated.
Technology advances have made up for a lot, but the reductions in available bandwidth and spectrum coverage impact the ability to perform the emergency and disaster duties we depend on them to provide when things go really bad.
Strat
Innovation (Score:4, Insightful)
Emergency communication is important, but that's really not the only reason for amateur radio. Access to these bands is a great way for people, both young and old, to be able to experiment with electronics. A lot of innovations in communication have come from hams, frequency modulation is a good example. Many experienced engineers have gotten their start messing with radio gear.
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Bah! All you young whipper-snappers and your fancy-pants centimeter-band radios makes my shingles act up!
Real men don't need anything north of 30 MHz! That's where you find the radios made of iron and glowing tubes!
Not these sickly, plastic-fantastic micro-circuited gizmos!
Now get off my yard!!
Re:But will we? (Score:4, Informative)
Here's an example:
http://redcrossnw.wordpress.com/2007/12/13/amateur-radio-provides-lifeline-during-disaster/ [wordpress.com]
You could, y'know, use a fucking search engine and answer the question yourself, but then you wouldn't get a chance to be a belittling piece of shit on /.
Re:But will we? (Score:5, Funny)
You could, y'know, use a fucking search engine and answer the question yourself, but then you wouldn't get a chance to be a belittling piece of shit on /.
Hey pot, I don't think you and kettle have been formally introduced yet.
Re:But will we? (Score:5, Informative)
I hear this a lot, that Ham radio is useful in disasters, but can anyone give some examples?
I live in an area that's prone to flooding, this year especially. Every year, local hams provide the communications and logistics for sandbagging operations. A few years ago, there was also a chemical spill and some guys I know ended up acting as go-betweens for the police and fire department as well. They were put on the radio because of their experience.
On another note, a lot of hams are involved in storm spotting. Granted, there's not a lot they can do other than report but sometimes it does give people enough warning to get out of the way of a tornado.
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A few years ago, there was also a chemical spill and some guys I know ended up acting as go-betweens for the police and fire department as well. They were put on the radio because of their experience.
They were put on the radio because police and fire departments have been buying incompatible coms equipment for years.
After the clusterfuck that was the 9/11 reponse, there has been a concerted push to get law enforcement, fire, EMS, military, and government all working on the same wavelength.
That's pretty much the entire point of this bill.
Obviously selling off part of the HAM spectrum is a stupid idea, but his goal of getting ALL responders onto one wavelength is long overdue.
Of course, once you put all t
Re:But will we? (Score:4, Interesting)
They were put on the radio because police and fire departments have been buying incompatible coms equipment for years.
After the clusterfuck that was the 9/11 reponse, there has been a concerted push to get law enforcement, fire, EMS, military, and government all working on the same wavelength. That's pretty much the entire point of this bill.
Obviously selling off part of the HAM spectrum is a stupid idea, but his goal of getting ALL responders onto one wavelength is long overdue. Of course, once you put all the responders onto an encrypted channels in the 700MHz range, amateur radio will no longer be able to help.
You're right, a locality might have local police/sheriff/fire on the same band, but it will likely be only for that area, and the state police will or could be on another. Then, if that community is near the state border, the officials in the other state are quite likely using even different equipment.
I was talking with an emergency management official who went to a "high level" meeting trying to figure out how to handle this very problem if there ever was a large scale disaster. The meeting went on for HOURS, and they never got ANYWHERE. Just a bunch of bureaucracy, red tape blabbering of career politicians with no real knowledge of anything in the real world. Basically it was going to be expensive because ultimately someone was going to have to scrap all their radios and no-one wanted to do it.
As a (not active anymore but licensed) ham, who's dad IS an active ham, and who has spent a little time working with law enforcement and EM guys, ham radio IS vital to keep up. Many EM departments actively seek out local hams and support them and involve them.
When the power goes out on a large scale, like a katrina situation, or in a 3rd world country with crap infrastructure - the low power long range capability of ham radio is vital.
Re:But will we? (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, once you put all the responders onto an encrypted channels in the 700MHz range, amateur radio will no longer be able to help
I'm not a HAM enthusiast, but I know my fair share, and rest assured that availability of long-range communications is ALWAYS helpful.
Even if everyone in all emergency services has the same band of 700mhz radios and can talk to each other (unlikely, since they'll all be from different lowest-bidder manufacturers), it's often impractical due to the sheer volume of personnel. Having people who know how to communicate quickly and efficiently is important. Having people at the disaster site where shit's going down is important. Having people who can maintain equipment in addition to using it is important.
Keep a couple of HAM sets and someone who has a clue about them at your emergency center, and you can get field reports from places your officers can't go. You can talk to each other if and when your official encrypted channels are overloaded. You can get messages out to not only other departments, but other continents. You can coordinate with the general populace (at least to some extent) because just about everyone's got someone less than a mile away who has a HAM radio.
Plus, you've got some people who can build and maintain their own radios. Not many first-responder personnel are going to be very useful if they drop their radio into a puddle, but more than a few advanced HAMsters can probably rig something up with baling twine and bubblegum to keep the lines open to some extent (exaggeration, of course, but they've probably got enough spare parts to whip you up an extra radio, or keep a half dozen radios running).
Re:But will we? (Score:5, Insightful)
You ask a lot of questions.
We'll pick Katrina for an example. ARRL members swung into action and delivered the only real communications after phone went down and sat dishes were blown into surrounding counties. But this is a big example, smaller ones are equally as important when a tornado or hurricane just dropped by.
It's a hobby, and hams take things seriously with battery packs, survival gear, links into local emergency services, and knowledge of what works, what doesn't, and why.
Think of hams as radio hackers. Some are heroes, others are hobbyiests, some are both.
Re:But will we? (Score:4, Informative)
"Think of hams as radio hackers. Some are heroes, others are hobbyiests, some are both."
They were the first large group of "geeks". Long before PCs existed, the ARRL was active and strong.
http://www.arrl.org/ham-radio-history [arrl.org]
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When the Chinese, Chile and Indian Ocean quakes happened, Ham was the only ways to get data out of some areas.
Same goes for coordination during Hurricane Frances, 9/11, 2003 North America blackout and Hurricane Katrina.
Re:But will we? (Score:5, Informative)
I was in a natural disaster a while ago where pretty much all communications went down (power was out, phone poles knocked down, taking out Internet connections and landlines, cell towers offline or overloaded) except radio stations and HAM. The HAM guys relayed their message to a HAM operator at the radio station who would broadcast requests for help.
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While not a disaster (usually!), I sometimes participate in athletic events that span large rural areas that have spotty or nonexistent cell phone coverage.
The ham radio guys step in to provide communications support and help coordinate emergency assistance when needed.
Here's a few of those events:
http://www.therelay.com/re_credits.htm [therelay.com]
http://tahoeamateurradio.com/dethride.htm [tahoeamateurradio.com]
http://hoodtocoast.com/ [hoodtocoast.com]
Re:But will we? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:But will we? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:But will we? (Score:4, Insightful)
Also, how many police, fire, red cross people have the capability to put their radio net back together after something like that? The HAM guys can help coordinate action. I have seen antennas made from barbed wire, top rail of chain link fence, all kinds of crazy things, so one guy in his car could function as the control point for a net of people with hand held radios.
Most of the time, they are not on the news, because they are the people working to make things better, and not the people needing help. If you are not injured, grieving, or complaining about something, you are not of interest to the news media.
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Re:You'll miss them in a disaster (Score:5, Informative)
Two quick points:
1) They're everywhere. There are over 600,000 licensed amateur radio operators in the US. If you live in the US, odds are, a ham lives or works less than half a mile from you.
2) A quick example of what they can do:
a) talk to people in the ISS
b) access email from nearly anywhere on the planet (no cell coverage? no problem!)
c) move information into and out of countries where infrastructure is not available or does not exist (Libya)
d) provide communications networks for very large events (marathons, etc)
e) tell emergency services to dig you out of your (mother's) hurricane-flattened house. (Ask the folks in New Orleans)
Hams are frequently very active in the public safety sphere. Don't mess with them.
Bad receivers are your issue. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:You'll miss them in a disaster (Score:4, Insightful)
Amateur radio operators are very good at staying within their licensed frequencies. What you were seeing and hearing was how cheap TV tuners are. Ginger was bobbing around somewhere in the low TV bands 59 - 88 Mhz, while the Ham was on the closest 6 meter band at 54 MHz. I have a 100 ft tower for an AM radio station less than a mile from my house so I have a trap on the phone line to filter that frequency. You could have done that on your antenna line for a few coconuts.
Re:You'll miss them in a distaster (Score:4, Informative)
Okay, honest question - I don't know much about Ham radio. But the article says they're selling rights to a particular spectrum - but is this the only part of the spectrum available for amateur operators?
I swear I'm not trolling, or trying to minimize the impact. I understand it might require changing broadcast gear, etc., but this wouldn't seem to be an existential threat to ham operators, merely a hassle because you have to move to new frequencies. Or is there something intrinsically better about the specific frequencies in question (420-440 MhZ) which makes them particularly well-suited to amateur radio broadcasts, to the point that hams couldn't operate elsewhere?
A couple issues.
First off, if you're a ham and you've invested in gear for a particular band, and that band gets sold off... Guess what? Your gear's now nearly worthless. "Moving to new frequencies" means "buying new gear", unless you have gear that already supports that band. And there's nothing in this deal about a new chunk of spectrum being allocated to hams to replace 440.
Second, yes, it's just one chunk of spectrum. But the problem is this isn't the only thing something like this has happened. If chunks of amateur spectrum continue to be taken away, at some point there will be nothing left.
Third: different wavelengths have different benefits. I don't remember all the details but I know the longer wavelengths (10 meters, etc.) allow you do do things like atmospheric propagation to get a signal to the other side of the world. Shorter wavelengths (and, hence, higher frequencies) IIRC deal better with local obstacles, and you can get more data through a signal (more bandwidth)
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Well, according to Fallout 3, they will be able to push a button to make a static-like noise, and then push it again to make a simple click.
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Re:You'll miss them in a disaster (Score:4, Funny)
Only if a survival-minded HAM with locator equipment doesn't get to him first.
Re:No I won't (Score:4, Informative)
Screw your "Red Dawn" scenario roleplay bullshit, I have REAL emergencies to attend to, where people REALLY die when things fuck up.
I thought that was why hams worked with the Red Cross for non-emergecny health and welfare communications. The EMS guys are busy looking for bodies to save and don't really care if Aunt Betty wants to tell her family that she's in a shelter and is ok. Even digital trunking radios have capacity limitations, so wouldn't you rather have non-essential communications going out over a separate radio network?
The hams know much more about signal propagation and antenna design than any EMS worker ever needs to know. If the earthquake takes out your repeater tower, you're going to be begging the hams to get communication out over HF since your nice digital trunking handheld wont reach around the corner without the repeater.
Re:No I won't (Score:4, Insightful)
Take it to the scene? Are you talking about a car-wreck or a natural disaster? A large earthquake could have a 200 square mile "scene", and may involve emergency personnel from across the country, each with their own disparate radio system that doesn't interoperate with the local agencies. Even in my local area there are a number of non-interoperable EMS radio systems, complicating disaster communications.
How do I know this? Local ARES meetings where the hams meet with local agencies to help define and coordinate their roles. Many of the members work for EMS services as EMT's, firemen, dispatches, etc. It seems that emergency service providers in my area don't reject volunteer disaster communications help - perhaps the thought of hundreds of thousands of people without power and fresh water (many of them suddenly homeless with no where to go) makes EMS providers think that just because their firetrucks can talk to each other, there might be other disaster communication needs. Only 30% of my department's firefighters even live in my city, so there won't be much immediate help to supplement on-duty firefighters, there may be less than 600 firefighters on-hand to support 700,000 citizens (and another few hundred thousand commuter workers trapped in the city).
Rather than badmouthing those that try to help, why not put them to work - organize meetings and find ways that they can help cover gaps in your communication. If power is out, cell towers are down, how will someone in a remote area let you know he needs help? If you think hams get in your way in a disaster, wait until disaster victims crowd your fire station trying to get health and welfare information for them and their family members.
Even my NERT [sf-fire.org] training talked about the role that hams can play in a large disaster. EMS can't be everywhere, and when normal communication channels are down, the average citizen needs some way to contact EMS when there's a problem. (though my city is unique in that there are still old-fashioned fire department call boxes on many street corners)
Re:No I won't (Score:5, Informative)
I am a "real professional" I work on an ambulance, I have an extensive background in search and rescue, and I'm a ham radio operator.
I have amazed the military, the local police forces, and the head of disaster services for our province with what I can do on ham radio, things they can't do on their multi-million dollar comm systems when they're working properly. In a disaster, when all the repeaters that are required for the fancy digital radios stop working, emergency services always come back to the hams.
Your truck is a good first step in emergency preparedness, but there's never a guarantee it will work as planned, or that it can get to where you need it, or that you won't need it in more than one location at the same time. One mobile repeater won't cover the site of a large scale disaster, and outside responding agencies may not even be able to use it.
The only "holier-than-thou I-know-everything" types are the ones who think they are infaliable and could never require any outside assistance. If you are truly involved in emergency services I suggest you go back to your most basic introductory class where they discuss knowing your limitations, operating within them, and not being afraid to call for help when you actually need it. This is part of every single course I have ever seen for every emergency service qualification, it's tragic that many people forget it, because it's simple stuff like that that costs lives, sometimes the victims, and often the responders.
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Well, Satellite communications can also operate without the grid. And the EMS communication systems will have generator backed up systems that will also keep running... as long as there's no physical damage and as long as they can keep fuel to the generators during a prolonged disaster but hams have the same constraints with power.
Won't the military have something to say about it? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Yeah, having a good answer to the standard who's-going-to-stop-me question -- "You and what army?" -- always helps ;) The army usually gets their way in congress. I found one site that listed near that spectrum:
Since it's King p
Re:Won't the military have something to say about (Score:4, Interesting)
Erm, looks like I grabbed the wrong spectrum. 420-440, not 400-420. Let's see: I found a different page that lists "satellites, Pave Paws radar systems, radio beacons, military and Amateur Radio operators." I double checked PAVE PAWS (the radar system designed to detect and track ICBMs and satellites), and indeed, it's 435mhz. The radar installations are bloody huge [brookings.edu], so I hope that if this passes, they can be reconfigured.
Re:Won't the military have something to say about (Score:5, Informative)
PAVE-PAWS [wikimedia.org] uses 435Mhz. In fact, there are regulations regarding ham use, power output, and directionality of transmissions in that frequency range by ham radio operators within 150 miles of those installations.
No. They will not auction that off. Peter King will sit down and STFU.
Re:Won't the military have something to say about (Score:5, Funny)
Yep. Amateurs understand they are "secondary users" of this spectrum. And it's always a good idea to defer to primary users who have attack helicopters and radio-direction-finding equipment... ;)
Freakin' genius (Score:2)
This guy keeps getting smarter and smarter.
Re:Freakin' genius (Score:4, Interesting)
I dunno. I kind of think the whole of the congress is on the dim side. Just a couple weeks ago, Harry Reid said the US doesn't have GPS like the rest of the world.
He can rationalize anything (Score:5, Informative)
Peter King has struck me as one of those guys who can rationalize away everything he does. Sure, to some people, it would seem like creating a Public Safety network by hobbling the military's usage of the 420-440 MHz block would seem highly inconsistent, but not so for Peter King. Same thing with his current hearings on the how American Muslims are becoming radicalized. Some people would think that it would be highly hypocritical of him to open public hearings on radicalism in Islam considering that for decades, he was a supporter and backer of the Irish Republican Army, a terrorist organization that killed 3500 people in 3 decades and were involved with Libyan terrorists funded by the Gaddafi regime. But nope, Peter King sees no hypocrisy at work.
What an awful person.
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Well, my number was wrong. Apparently, the IRA was responsible for something like 1800 murders, 600 of which were civilians. They're still terrorists.
Re:He can rationalize anything (Score:5, Insightful)
King claims the IRA never killed an American. As if that should make a difference, but it isn't even true, the IRA has killed Americans.
Re:He can rationalize anything (Score:5, Insightful)
Peter King supported, financially and politically, people who murdered and maimed women and children. He has no moral high ground.
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He has no moral high ground.
And it doesn't speak well of his constituents. What kind of people would vote for this man?
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I certainly hope that his current anti-Islamic hate campaign [wikipedia.org] ends very badly for him [wikipedia.org].
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What I find funny is he goes out of his way to say that while most muslims are good citizens their clerics are telling them to just ignore the radicals, but couldn't the same be said about the evangelical movement? Why is it if someone is muslim and does something wrong they are a terrorist, but when they are another religion they are simply criminals, I dont see a terrorist label being placed on Scott Roeder, Christopher Speight or James Von Brunn, etc.
Re:He can rationalize anything (Score:4, Insightful)
No, it's an issue because despite the fact that there have been numerous terrorist attacks this year by non-Muslims he's ONLY going to focus on Muslims. Also, he's not letting Muslim organizations or supporters testify despite the fact that he's been saying a lot of stuff about them and that these Muslim organizations have done a lot of anti-terrorist work with the FBI. Actual law enforcement officers aren't allowed to testify either, so he'll never have his theories disproved.
If Congress were to hold hearings on Wall Street Fraud and Madoff-style scandals, but only focus on Jews, it would also be "hate speech."
International agreements (Score:5, Insightful)
Well that could be fun considering a lot of the HAM radio spectrum blocks are internationally recognized and used. Go ahead, sell it off, give it to someone else to use, I'm just north of your border, and my government hasn't proposed selling off that spectrum (yet). So I'm sure the private purchases of that spectrum will just LOVE when we all continue to key up on those bands (or the satellites already in orbit continue to transmit in to your borders on those frequencies).
Someone needs to inform this congressman of the realities of how spectrum allocation works.
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Giving him information won't help any.
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Useless (Score:3)
Second why add this to a Broadband for First responders bill when it will mess with our existing Military infrastructure? It says to make it so they can pay for the Broadband but forcing the Military to change their equipment so someone can buy this little spectrum doesn't sound like it will make money.
Re:Useless (Score:4, Insightful)
The government itself may not come out ahead on a deal like that, but I'd imagine there's a very good chance that King himself or one of his good friends would.
Re: (Score:2)
The government itself may not come out ahead on a deal like that, but I'd imagine there's a very good chance that King himself or one of his good friends would.
Bingo. Just think of all that (now obsolete) Government equipment that needs to be replaced. General Dynamics is listed as one of his major PAC contributors (albeit at only $12,500 - representatives are pretty cheap these days). Always follow the money.
I can translate (Score:2)
I'm from DC and I have many years of experience translating political statements. What he really means is "I'm currently looking for a large corporation I can kick this too and get perks in the form of lobbying, parties, comps, and a job after my work here looting the government is done. Whether it's a good thing is of little concern for me actually."
Ignores the public safety role of radio amateurs (Score:5, Interesting)
We've seen time and time again that the public-safety services are not themselves able to provide sufficient communications operators to handle an emergency, and that they aren't able to improvise communications systems to meet the needs of an emergency that takes out infrastructure. That's what hams are for. One of the things they do with that spectrum is build and practice their own systems, so that in an emergency they are ready.
And let's not forget all of the technical advances that come from Amateur Radio, and its unique uses in education - how else can individuals work with space communications, software-defined-radio, etc. All of the other options are company-controlled.
In California, we already have a problem on those frequencies due to the PAVE-PAWS system at Beale Air Force Base out by Yuba City. Surprisingly, it can receive hams in the San Francisco Bay area - on a UHF band where I wouldn't expect that distance - and we have had to reduce power on most of the repeaters in that band to protect the military's space-warning services. If the band were to be sold, it would not be available for commercial users in much of California.
But we have a right to be sick of all of the folks who look at our frequencies with dollar signs in their eyes.
PAVE-PAWS on Google Maps (Score:3)
how much of a loss? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm a ham operator, although I haven't been active on the air for a long time, so my information may be out of date. This doesn't seem like a huge crisis to me. Hams currently have 2 meters and 70 cm. This proposal would take away most of 70 cm, but there would still be a lot of bandwidth left in there. Considering that the hobby is basically dying out, I'm not sure it would be totally rational to keep allocating the same amount of spectrum to hams indefinitely. Is there any evidence that in a hurricane or earthquake, the remaining 10 MHz of bandwidth would be inadequate for emergency communications?
Re:how much of a loss? (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
While the ARRL has in the past supported band readjustment, this one doesn't really pass the sniff test.
Re:how much of a loss? (Score:4, Informative)
Although 70 cm isn't one of the major ham bands
It's quite heavily used. It's the most heavily used UHF ham band.
For example, take a look at this list of hand-held radios for sale by one vendor; 2/3 of them work on 70cm.
http://www.gigaparts.com/store.php?action=matrix&catcode=tx-ht [gigaparts.com]
Re: (Score:3)
I'm curious why you say it's dying out?
I actually just got licensed, and have been building the tech for over a decade. I love being able to communicate over huge distances using only what I built myself.
Re: (Score:3)
It's all a matter of what you want to do on the radio. I've found a huge gap in radio operators, we have the really old ones, who got their licenses as you say, to chat, for social contact, to tinker, etc. And then there's the gap where people realized that long distance phone calls were cheap, the internet made contact almost free, etc. Then we have the new hams, they aren't doing it to "chat" or for the social interaction, they are doing it for different reasons.
Ham radio hasn't become irrelecant, but it'
Re: (Score:3)
sorry, your rationalizations and guesses do not have any foundation in reality.
ham radio has been growing steadily for the past 6 years, with more new licenses issued each year than the last.. all during the same timeframe that social web sites became popular. Last year saw twice as many new ham licenses issued as 5 years prior. So.. the hobby doubled it's rate of new members during social networking's biggest boom. Doesn't seem to me that the communications options available online are having much effec
Re: (Score:2)
Definitely not dying.
We have folks showing up almost every weekend to our (rather remote) testing sessions serving the mountain communities of SW San Bernardino County. We're not exactly in what you'd consider a highly populated location, either.
LOTS of interest out there.
Wrong! (Score:2)
How to help (Score:2)
If you are a registered Ham Radio operator, this site [kd4pyr.net] has a quick-and-easy form to generate a letter to your representative in congress to oppose the bill.
What about RFID? (Score:2)
Some active RFID tags operate at 433 MHz [iso.org].
putting on the tin foil (Score:3)
Ham radio is one of the last difficult to suppress communication mediums and for some reason an attempt to 'sell' this space just strikes me as not a good for public thing.
Oblig Quote (Score:4, Funny)
"Rep. Peter King (R-NY), Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, has introduced HR 607, the 'Broadband for First Responders Act of 2011,' which has been referred to the House Energy and Commerce Committee (which handles telecommunications legislation).
King? Well I didn't vote for ya...
Automatic Objecton Letter Generator (Score:5, Informative)
All amateur radio operators reading about this should be incensed. This is a major grab of our bands for public safety and they already have a very generous portion of the radio spectrum and don't need to steal ours. They already have 450-470 as public service bands and these are only used for that in major metro areas along with 700-800 MHz.
In 90% of the country public safety uses VHF high and low bands (150 and 30 Mhz, respectively) and that is adequate for their needs. The same is true for amateur radio with the exception of 700-800 MHz, where VHF is primarily used throughout the country and 440 MHz is mostly used in areas of higher urban/suburban density. In these areas, the 2 meter bands are saturated with large, old repeaters and the 440 MHz band is the most vital and dynamic band around, it's where the more technically savvy types tend to hang out, whereas the older systems on 2 meters are usually older folks talking about what they are dying of. Due to saturation of 2 meter repeaters there is no opportunity for growth or change there, if someone wants to put up a new system then 440 MHz band may be their only choice. Also, most of the dinosaur 2 meter machines are multi-receive site networks, and the remote receivers are linked in the 420-430 MHz band. The other service that would be mostly impacted is Amateur Television (ATV) which is mostly in the 420-430 MHz band, that would be completely eliminated.
There is a nice website set up that will automatically generate a letter of objection, tailored to your local state representative automatically. It's nice and easy you just enter your callsign and it looks it up and generates an auto-addressed letter ready to print and sign. The link is here [kd4pyr.net]. Calling all hams! This is really important, please do it today!!
Not just Ham radio... (Score:2)
He also wants to sell off 450-470 MHz. Among other uses, this is the band for consumer FRS radios. Just try telling the public that they aren't allowed to use their walkie-talkies anymore...
Re: (Score:3)
What company would WANT to buy that bit of spectrum for a new service?
There are so many FRS/GMRS radios out there by now that the band may not be free from interference for decades. Most ordinary consumers aren't going to be aware that frequency allocations have changed, and will continue using their Wall-Mart walkie-talkies as they always have.
You might as well try to repurpose the 27 MHz Citizens Band. The FRS spectrum is just about as crowded in some areas.
ARRL (Score:5, Informative)
Follow the money... (Score:4, Informative)
we will lack techie playground (Score:3, Interesting)
Everyone loves to mention value of amateur radio when disasters strike (and yes this non-govt, non-centralized infrastructure of wireless communications is difficult to take out). What I see is a much more serious blow and that is removing the wireless "playground" for techies and nerds to do their thing. OK so many of these guys don't spend much time with girls but it is the hands-on experience of applying theory to practice, trying some different kind of radio configuration, or simply seeing what works/what doesn't work.
Besides Marconi or Armstrong, countless engineers and other technical professionals acquired useful skills through bold experimentation to either push the envelope to develop new technologies, knowing how to read schematics and work on systems to get a reasonable paying job instead minimal wage at a retail store, or from past personal experience will know better to not accidently take down entire comm system of their employer (although it sometimes still happens).
If we trash RF spectrum for techies to play with, we stymied personal development in wireless technologies. Not that it would be the end of everything but it will become more difficult for someone to enter that field.
Another scary aspect is this proposal has got to be the dumbest thing ever. Part 90 users are fuming as they are having to narrowband then whammo! They gotta dump all their 450MHz gear and infrastructure, then have to start from the ground up on 700MHz. I really wonder what kind of people we have making such decisions, like they have no competent advisors.
Now that you got me ranting about stuff, I will add only reason to move all PS agencies to 700MHz is because it is easier to organize on MS Excel. What we have here is a failure of policy makers grasping the physics of the situation.
For years we've been hammered with "govt is bad" and "regulation is bad" and FCC being a govt agency that does regulation they inherently have two strikes as the bad guy. Then as this whole jihad against govt spending little agencies like FCC are being further reduced (look at actual fed budget numbers, you will see FCC along with NASA, EPA, Dept of Education take a 16% slice of the pie, but the big slices is never discussed). So it is not surprising FCC lacks those with technical know-how to properly advise policy makers.
Along with other FCC mischief is the approval of mobile broadband by Lightspeed adjacent to GPS freq (there is actually intense meetings at fed agencies in Wash DC about how to deal with this).
So be careful before getting on the bandwagon about reducing govt spending and privatizing everything, look at the rest of budget pie instead of that 16% slice. You may not like the result and it will not do much in overall spending.
Not a useful question (Score:3)
You can't sensibly ask "How much of all available bandwidth for Hams are we talking about?", because all amateur bands have very different propagation characteristics, so a percentage figure isn't informative.
The 70cm band that he wants to sell off is one of the very best local area amateur community bands, recognized worldwide. The 2m band below it and the 23cm band above it don't have the same properties at all.
Re: (Score:3)
Good title to the topic, Erroneous. You are WRONG, the US 70 cm band is 420.000 - 449.995 MHz with some exceptions near the Canadian border. Look it up.
Um, no. (Score:4, Informative)
No, we don't. For broadcast, we rely on existing commercial broadcast stations, which is why they test the Emergency Alert System [wikipedia.org] from time to time.
The problem H.R.607 is attempting to address is the fact that police, firemen, and first responders of all stripes don't have a common way to communicate; their frequencies are spread throughout the spectrum. The attempt is to establish the so-called "D Block", 758-763 and 788-793 MHz, as a unified, interoperable public safety band to fix this (among other repairs). The part to which people object is Sec. 207(d)(1) [opencongress.org], which reads,
AUCTION- Not later than 10 years after the date of enactment of this Act, the paired electromagnetic spectrum bands of 420-440 megahertz and 450-470 megahertz recovered as a result of the report and order required under subsection (c) shall be auctioned off by the Federal Communications Commission through a system of competitive bidding meeting the requirements of section 309 of the Communications Act of 1934.
In other words, the bill proposes to fund the transition by selling off this spectrum; the people who have been using this spectrum (since shortly after World War II, I might add) are, quite reasonably, upset.