Chris Smith, K1CJS writes:
In what our Section Manager Art Greenberg will say is in the interest of amateur radio, I have a news item of some small importance here, please alert your club personnel and publish this news in your club newsletters and on your club websites.
We hams are having to put up with a loss of our ability to use the 440 mhz band in this area because of the Pave Paws installation here, but now there comes another threat to our use of this band–nationwide. It seems that a commercial concern has applied for a waiver to utilize these frequencies for incidental control of a remote controlled surveillance ‘robot’. I’m including the released information here–please make your comments known to the FCC.
A situation like this led to our loss of part of the 220 mhz band to a commercial package carrier–who ultimately gave up on using the allocation, and now the remaining 220 mhz band is hardly used at all–the ham manufacturers don’t really make radios for the 220 mhz band anymore. It can be argued that we don’t want to lose the 440 mhz band in a similar manner. Even though this waiver spells out use only at isolated incidents along with other restrictions, how long would it be until a waiver application was made to remove the restrictions?
It may well be worth our while to send notice to the FCC that this doesn’t sit well with us–the amateur community, and that other similar frequencies are available or may soon be available that would better suit this type application.
Please help spread the word–and help protect our band allocations.
73,
Chris J Smith, K1CJS
Eastern Mass. Affiliated Clubs Coordinator
_________________
PUBLIC NOTICE
Federal Communications Commission
445 12th St., S.W. Washington, D.C. 20554
News Media Information 202 / 418-0500
Internet: http://www.fcc.gov
TTY: 1-888-835-5322 DA 08-1077
Released: May 6, 2008
WIRELESS TELECOMMUNICATIONS BUREAU AND PUBLIC SAFETY AND HOMELAND SECURITY BUREAU SEEK COMMENT ON REQUEST FOR WAIVER BY RECONROBOTICS, INC. TO ALLOW CERTIFICATION AND USE OF REMOTE-CONTROLLED SURVEILLANCE ROBOT OPERATING AT 430-448 MHz
WP Docket No. 08-63
Comment Date: May 27, 2008
Reply Date: June 6, 2008
The complete text can be found at:
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-08-1077A1.txt