The ARRL reports:
The International Amateur Radio Union Region 2 (IARU R2) — the Americas — has released the September 2020 revision of its Band Plan and made procedural changes to shorten the time to reflect future adjustments. The Band Plan includes a change approved at the October 2019 General Assembly to add an Amateur Satellite uplink subband, 21.125 to 21.450 MHz, on a non-exclusive basis. This matches similar changes in the Region 1 and Region 3 band plans.
A number of administrative changes have been made to the text, although the Band Plan itself has not been modified. These changes include:
- Modifications to the wording of the Band Plan to ensure that national regulators understand it is a voluntary document, and that countries may depart from the plan based on national requirements.
- Definitions additions: Amateur Radio Direction Finding (ARDF), primary service, secondary service, and several acronyms.
- Inclusion of information detailing the primary and secondary users in each amateur radio allocation band.
To be honest, I never really paid that much attention to this band plan, but I looked it over and found a few interesting tidbits:
- There are CW QRS “centers of activity” at 3555 kHz, 14055 kHz, and 28055 kHz. I’m not sure why there aren’t also QRS centers of activity on the other bands.
- There are both CW and SSB QRP “centers of activity” on all the HF bands. I’d never heard of the SSB QRP frequencies before.
- On 30m, the primary users are identified as “fixed stations,” whatever that means. I’m curious about the nature of these fixed stations, where they’re located, what modes they operate, and for what purpose.
I sometimes hear SSB stations on 30m, but even though they’re speaking a language that I don’t recognize, I am coming to think that they are pirate, i.e. unlicensed stations. There doesn’t seem to be any station identification , for one thing.