Montenegro and Lithuania Join the 60-Metre Band Community

Montenegro and Lithuania are the latest countries to announce adoption of a new Amateur Radio band at 5 MHz. Both countries have authorized amateur operation on a secondary allocation of 5,351.5 – 5,366.5 kHz at up to 15 W EIRP, per the Final Acts of World Radiocommunication Conference 2015.

Montenegro’s International Amateur Radio Union member-society, the Montenegrin Amateur Radio Pool (MARP), confirmed the new allocation.

Lithuania’s IARU member-society LRMD President Tadas Vysniauskas, LY2BAW, said the news was “enthusiastically received” there

Three New Amateur Radio Bands for Indian Hams

The Indian Government’s Telecommunications regulator has published a 2018 Update to the Indian National Frequency Plan, effective 25th October 2018, which lists new bands at 5 MHz/60m, 472 kHz/630m and 135 kHz/2300m.

• 5351.5-5366.5 kHz - Amateur 5.133B (Secondary, 15W EIRP)

• 472-479 kHz - Amateur 5.80A (Secondary, 1W EIRP )

• 135.7-137.8 kHz - Amateur 5.67A (Secondary, 1W EIRP)

The regulations are as follows current ITU criteria for these bands.

Indian National Frequency Plan - http://wpc.dot.gov.in/WriteReadData/userfiles/NFAP%202018.pdf

Proposed French Amateur Radio Exam Changes and 60m Access

The Directorate General for Enterprise (DGE) intends to make changes to the amateur radio exams and permit the WRC-15 60m allocation

France currently has a single 40 question HAREC amateur radio exam, however, one point is deducted for each wrong answer on the paper.

The good news is this rule is to be scrapped and a wrong answer will simply count as nil points.

It seems DGE also plans to introduce exam questions covering DSP, Sampling, Nyquist, Convolution, Anti-aliasing, and ADC/DAC.

DR@F additionally report that French radio amateurs will gain access to the WRC-15 60m band 5351.5-5366.5 kHz Secondary with 15 watts EIRP.

See the DR@F Twitter feed at - https://twitter.com/DigitalHam

DR@F website in Google English - https://tinyurl.com/FranceDRAF