Excerpts from RSGB President’s letter to Ofcom regarding 144-146 MHz

After due consideration, and as reported in GB2RS news on Friday 5 July, RSGB President Dave Wilson, M0OBW wrote to Ofcom strongly expressing the RSGB’s concerns about the proposed WRC-23 aeronautical Agenda Item that includes 144-146 MHz.

The President’s letter started by stating that the RSGB ‘shares the concerns of the global amateur community and views the French proposal as lacking a proper understanding of the implications of sharing an aeronautical application with weak-signal terrestrial and space communications services’.

It continued by saying that ‘from our perspective, and in the view of the wider global amateur community, we do not foresee any realistic feasibility of a sharing scenario which does not seriously degrade or impede amateur usage of the spectrum, given the extent and complexity of current amateur services’ primary usage’.

The letter stated that there seems no justification for including this band in the proposed study, and that the RSGB is not convinced that there are ‘any innovative sharing methods’ which would not inevitably constrain both incumbent and new services’.

The letter went on to say that ‘inclusion of this spectrum in the study is likely to involve regulators in a lot of extra work, when the outcome can be sensibly predicted at this stage’.

A set of appendices were attached to the letter, to enhance understanding of amateur radio usage in this band, and emphasise why any study for such new use would inevitably be fraught with complexity and likely to be unsuccessful.

The letter concluded with requests regarding three other WRC Agenda Items – 50 MHz, Wireless Power Transfer (WPT) and 23cm/Galileo, where UK/Ofcom support is also sought.

For further information please see our WRC-19 focus pages.

Source:RSGB