BATC Forum

As was predicted at the BATC BGM last October it is highly likely that there will be changes to the amateur allocations at 2.3 GHz, which will almost certainly affect ATV repeaters and simplex operation.

As you may have seen in the Jan 2013 Radcom article “spectrum release & amateur radio”, available for download at http://rsgbbeta.org/operating/band-plans/ and also in the recent RSGB news, Ofcom are currently consulting with users about the next round of spectrum release during 2014.

This is particularly relevant to the ATV community as it affects spectrum currently held by government departments such as the MoD, who have committed to hand back 500 MHz below 5 GHz, and are currently the primary user (and therefore grant NoV clearance) for the 2.3 and 3.4 amateur bands, where they stated they will release 2350 - 2390 MHz. See https://www.gov.uk/sharing-defence-spectrum for more details.

As part of the assessment process, the ETCC and BATC offered Ofcom the opportunity to visit a 2.3GHz ATV repeater (GB3TZ) and also for a group of ATVers to visit the test labs at Baldock radio with typical user equipment. Ofcom readily agreed to this and on April 3rd, G8GTZ, G3PYB, G8ADM, G3XTW and G4CPE visited Baldock with 6 sets of equipment ranging from a Comtech transmitter to an SR systems digital encoder / modulator and transverter. A full report of the visit will be included in CQ-TV 240.

As the next stage of the process, Ofcom have just put out a call for inputs - see http://rsgbbeta.org/blog/news/gb2rs/hea ... 0mhz-call/ and the BATC and ETCC are fully engaged with Ofcom in negotiating the best possible outcome for ATV and other amateur users.

Murray Niman (RSGB spectrum Manager) will be presenting an update at RAL microwave roundtable in June http://www.ntay.com/hars/RAL2013.html and at CAT13 (the BATC convention) at Finningley on October 26th / 27th.

Best 73

Noel - G8GTZ

Thanks for the update Noel.
All snipped of information on this front greatly appreciated.

Terry G1LPS (Keeper GB3KM " 2.44, 2.388 & 2.328GHz")

Thanks Terry,

Yes, we will keep you informed as soon as we get any information - I understand that there will be a lot of activity from Ofcom in the next couple of weeks as they need to finalise everything before the end of the year, ready for auction next summer.

73

Noel - G8GTZ

No real additional news but the RSGB pages have been updated so one of the links above no longer works.

This revised page with full details of frequencies affected is at http://rsgb.org/main/operating/band-pla ... m-release/

The next event is when Ofcom release the 2.3 GHz proposal documents which is likely to be a few weeks away.

73

Noel - G8GTZ

For those who haven't seen the info in RadCom, the Ofcom site has the consultations pre-notice here:-

http://licensing.ofcom.org.uk/radiocomm ... dates/arc/

Murray G6JYB

Note that in the Ofcom announcement, as well as the bad news regarding 2.3 GHz, there is good news in that it it possible that an additional 1 MHz will be awarded to the amateur service.

When this was originally proposed, the BATC technical liaison committee put in a paper lobbying for part of any additional 2 metre band allocation to be used for narrow band (.5 to 1 MHz) DATV. This now looks like it may become a reality and opens a whole new potential for DX TV working.

This not really the topic for this forum thread and we should open up a new thread once the allocation has been confirmed.

Best 73

Noel - G8GTZ

The Ofcom consultation document has been released today -

http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binari ... mateur.pdf

Please read carefully - more comment / discussion to follow.

Noel - G8GTZ

So Noel, should we be responding to this individually or do you think it would be better
for BATC to provide a joint response?

I suspect that for the new users of the adjacent bands that inference from Radio Amateurs
will be the least of their problems.

I also have some thoughts on interference mitigation strategies.

- Charles

Hi Charles,

Without telling people what to say, the RSGB / BATC will be responding formally to the consultation and we will make our responses known. We would urge every BATC member to respond individually making use of the information we provide as you think appropriate.....

Whilst we can use this forum to debate TV related issues, the RSGB is also setting up a forum at http://www.rsgb.org/consultations and they will take their input from there and it is likely to be watched by Ofcom to gauge the level of interest etc.

My own personal opinion is that the document gives a balanced view of the situation and is very well researched and through the work of the BATC, ATV gets very good coverage. It is a credit to the RSGB and BATC that Ofcom are sympathetic to the amateur cause, unlike the regulator in Sweden and Australia where access to the band was removed without discussion.

73

Noel - G8GTZ

g8gtz wrote:Hi Charles,
Whilst we can use this forum to debate TV related issues, the RSGB is also setting up a forum at http://www.rsgb.org/consultations and they will take their input from there and it is likely to be watched by Ofcom to gauge the level of interest etc.
73

Noel - G8GTZ

For those who dont read GB2RS or the RSGB website...

A discussion forum has been opened on the RSGB website for Spectrum Release in the 2.3 and 3.4GHz amateur bands. This particularly affects the microwave and ATV communities and the Ofcom documents have extensive detail and implications.
The forum is a moderated one and open to all UK amateurs who should register using their callsign.

The web address is http://www.rsgb.org/consultations and includes links for the forum
as well as additional background information and the Ofcom documents.

http://rsgb.org/consulations

Its still open to (civil) suggestions - prior to us putting forward a preferred
view for final comments/push (which we will do after Friedrichshafen)

Murray G6JYB, RSGB Microwave Manager