Amateur friends, please read the attached document (from QST) and consider acting to make your comment heard with the FCC (if you haven’t already). Your comments are critical to keeping the access and capabilities we have, at the moment, in place for 60 meters. The proposed changes will reduce the effective use of 60 meters to something less than we now have available. 60 meters serves as a good juncture between Amateur and other government communications entities (I.E Army Mars, Air Force Mars, SHARES, etc.) something that is critical during national or regional emergency events (I.E. Hurricanes). The proposed reduction of power and bandwidth essentially renders the access and capabilities we now have to something significantly less or useful.
If you act on this using the links in the attached document, consider sharing your responses with the rest of us so that others have a possible reference for developing their own response. Some of us are less creative writers than others so in this case plagiarism is permissible and drives home the common message.
David Benoist
AG4ZR
ARRL How to Respond to the FCC to Preserve 60 Meters
Sample Comments
“Thousands of unpaid volunteer man hours are spent training for disaster communications each year. The 60 meter band has proven itself time and again, as a workhorse for emergency communications. The privileges we have now on the 60 m band are an absolute necessity for interoperability between agencies and supporting amateur radio emergency communications groups. Due to noise and propagation, the reduction of power from 100 watt pep to 9.15 watt pep, will render the amateur radio disaster and emergency support groups useless. I urge you to reconsider your proposed privilege reduction, and leave it as is, or preferably, expand upon what is already in place.”
Ricky-NG4DX
“The 60 meter band has been a reliable and necessary spectrum for interoperability between government emergency agencies and amateur radio emergency services during critical public safety operations. Statewide volunteer emergency communications responders in Georgia and neighboring states spend hundreds of unpaid hours yearly in operational readiness training using the 60M band with channelized digital communications applications along with more common HF bands which often become very congested, as well as short-range bands for local operations. Due to noise and propagation, the reduction of power from 100-watt pep to 9.15-watt pep will effectively render this communications bandwidth useless for disaster and emergency traffic. As a former public safety communications officer, I urge you to not reduce operational parameters on this frequency band and leave it as is, or preferably, expand upon what is already in place.”
Regards,
Edwin Sims – N4UKW
North Fulton Amateur Radio Emergency Services
