Defending our spectrum
A blog post by Michelle, N5NYV, on the Open Research Institute (ORI) website does a nice job of describing the latest attempt to encroach on the 70 cm band. Michelle writes;
The amateur radio community has achieved a significant but limited victory in protecting the 430-440 MHz band from commercial satellite encroachment. AST SpaceMobile’s request for broad commercial use of amateur spectrum has been restricted to emergency-only operations for a maximum of 24 hours and only 20 satellites—but the fight isn’t over.
It’s limited in that while that the would-be encroacher was not given unfettered access to the frequencies, they are being allowed to use them for a limited time for “emergency” communications. Read Michelle’s post for more details.
Tech-focused hams
On QRZ.Com, Dave Jensen, W7DGJ, writes:
There’s a not-so-subtle change happening within the ranks of radio amateurs. New hams are coming into the hobby, but not for the same reasons that you and I had years ago. And these “new” hams have the potential of upending the market for products sold by the old guard — companies such as ICOM and Yaesu.
I and Steve, N8GNJ, have been writing about this for a while. Jensen thinks that these new hams are going to upend the market because they aren’t just in buying new radios, but instead building them as well. Time will tell, I guess.
Another dig at the ARRL
On his blog, KB9MWR writes opines that the ARRL needs to come up with a new “shtick,” for want of a better word. He writes:
In my opinion, the league should study the Raspberry Pi foundation, and attempt to follow in their footsteps. And to be clear, those footsteps are in working towards a goal of manufacturing partnerships to put some new technology in the hands of the masses. This is how you keep the bands active in my mind.
I think he’s on to something here. This idea also dovetails with the thoughts expressed by W7DGJ.
As always, I’d love to hear what you think about some of this.
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