Proposed FCC Auction of C-Band Increases Competition for Allocations

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A recent Plenary session to approve texts to be included in the Final Acts was scheduled to end at noon Thursday 21 November 2019 and delegates at WRC-19 faced a daunting workload as the conferees try to reach consensus on several remaining issues including the agenda for the next WRC.

Small Satellites which are increasingly commercial have been granted access to the space operations bands at 137/149MHz away from amateur allocations. The amateur secondary allocation at 5725-5850 MHz, which includes an amateur-satellite C-band downlink at 5830-5850 MHz, is the subject of an unresolved conflict over parameters for wireless access systems including radio local area networks. 5 GHz Wi-Fi will see most expansion below amateur radio in the 5150-5250 band reducing it impact on our 5725-5850 range. An article published by CNBC, also on November 18, a news item by Michael Sheetz, "Satellite stock Intelsat drops 40% after FCC 5G decision", discusses increasing pressure in the United States due to a proposed public auction of 280 megahertz of the C-band spectrum.

This article can be accessed in entirety - https://tinyurl.com/ANS-328-CNBC-5G-Article

Clearing Radio Amateurs out of 3.4 GHz

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Clearing Radio Amateurs out of 3.4 GHz

An FCC Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) proposes to remove the existing non-federal allocations in the 3.3-3.55 GHz band

By taking the initial step needed to clear the band of allocations for non-federal incumbents, the Commission furthers its continued efforts to make more mid-band spectrum potentially available to support next generation wireless networks—consistent with the mandate of the MOBILE NOW Act. - FCC

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SARL Novice Award

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The SARL Council has approved the SARL Novice Award.

This award is available to holders of a South African Novice Licence (ZU) and is designed to encourage activity across four designated bands for this licence class.

Contacts may be made using CW, SSB or FM modes, as appropriate on 80 m, 40 m, 10 m and 2 m with a minimum of 10 contacts and maximum of 25 contacts per band. Multiple contacts with the same amateur and contacts via terrestrial repeaters do not count for the award. No QSL cards are needed.

The Award information can be found on the League website.

South African Radio League - http://www.sarl.org.za