Can someone explain to me why it makes sense to dedicate 3Mhz of useful spectrum worldwide to an esoteric group of amateur radio enthusiasts in an era where we have the Internet?
I understand it may be an active community, but it's tiny. Why should this valuable spectrum be set aside for this purpose?
There are many reasons. Areas hit with wide-spread disasters have no functioning infrastructure. Radios are a quick and easy way to put an infrastructure into place. The 2 meter band is not susceptible to solar cycles, and it's cheap to make a radio operate in these bands; you can buy one for $20 on Amazon. Reliable spectrum + cheap radios + simple licensing procedures means you have thousands of unpaid volunteers with the technical know-how and equipment to set up a rather complex and efficient emergency communications network in a very short amount of time.
In other words, your smartphone isn't going to work, thus IRC isn't going to work. Even in areas hit by simple things such as power outages. Or events that take place over a wide geographic area with little to no cell service (think automobile rallies, marathons, biking events, etc). All these need reliable, inexpensive communications, and people to run them.
Next time you're stuck in an area hit by a natural disaster, and you've made it out alive, there's a significant chance amateur radio played a part in that.
> Next time you're stuck in an area hit by a natural disaster, and you've made it out alive, there's a significant chance amateur radio played a part in that.
"Professional" radio is likely after the first 24-48 hours of a large scale disaster, but for large hurricanes and earthquakes, radio amateurs are almost always the first dedicated communicators on site before local police and EMS networks come back online and external agencies arrive. This is simply because they're already present, and that emergency communication is a major facet of the radio service and why it continues to exist today.
Even companies have one or more amateur radio stations on site and several licensed and experienced communicators, just in case. I've worked at 3 and I'm familiar with dozens.
They're completely different use cases. When you have a dedicated frequency it's robust to a lot of common failure cases.
Take the Boston Marathon Bombing, of all the communication infrastructure Amateur Radio was one of the few that stayed up[1].
It's really common for hams to provide event support in cases like that and other events where cell communication is limited to none at best(think bike races out in rural areas).
Spend a bit of time poking around the hobby, you might find it's more interesting than first glance.
"Amateur radio enthusiasts have made significant contributions to science, engineering, industry, and social services. Research by amateur radio operators has founded new industries, built economies, empowered nations, and saved lives in times of emergency."
As someone who works in the commercial radio industry, I understand where you're coming from - the amateur radio radio bands are relatively silent (but definitely not unused) compared the the commercial/business bands, which is frustrating. There are applications which are difficult or impossible to do for customers that would be doable if amateur spectrum was reallocated for commercial uses.
That being said, having "amateurs" (who often know as much or more about radio than people who do it for a living) be able to experiment and learn radio is a net benefit to society.
> There are applications which are difficult or impossible to do for customers that would be doable if amateur spectrum was reallocated for commercial uses.
Oh? Isn't this comparable to "let's start allocating class E to help IPv4 live longer"? IOW: It's just a piss in the ocean, and wouldn't help meaningfully. (and also would raise a whole bunch of problems like $millions to $billions in deployed existing equipment, and other problems mentioned elsewhere)
I'm sure it'd be great for someone to get 2m band, or 70cm band. But you (the commercial operator) wouldn't get it, would you? It'd be sold to someone and it'd be gone from amateurs and from you.
Near 70cm there's the commercial FM band that you could argue has way more than 2MHz of just slack between stations.
So, I work with radios operating in the 450-470 MHz spectrum (among other bands). How these frequencies are assigned is complicated - they are usually coordinated, but aren't necessarily exclusive. So, for example, when setting up a data telemetry link between two points, you should go through the coordination process to find a frequency that is clear in the area you want to operate in. Frequencies are currently assigned on a 12.5kHz spacing, so in that band there are 800 channels (for various reasons, a given business or individual's application isn't eligible for all of the 800 - they may be reserved for public safety, or for low power voice, etc).
Two issues arise from this limitation - you may not be able to get as many frequencies as you want (perhaps you want 10 channels to have overlayed networks and/or repeaters). You also may not be able to get a 25kHz channel, which used to be the default assignment, and now is special request/justification only due to band crowding. Smaller channels = less bandwidth = less potential applications. In extremely crowded areas, there may be no available frequencies at all (or they may be limited to a few watts, reducing range and potential applications).
Amateurs currency have access to 420-450 MHz, an even larger band. If any of that were to be re-assigned, in theory it would be easier to get more channels or larger channels (there's no technical reason you could operate at 50kHz or 100kHz in that band, for example). Opening up even 2 MHz of spectrum could mean tens of thousands of additional stations could get on the air or new or existing licensees could get larger, faster channels.
A common misconception is that all commercial frequencies are auctioned off for geographically exclusive operation - this isn't true in this band and some others. A 10 year license is available to any American citizen, business, or municipal organization for about ~$500.
edit: I am aware this article is about 144-148 MHz, not 400 MHz. 150-174 MHz is more or less adjacent to the 2m band, and is handled by the FCC in more or less the same way as the 450-470 MHz band.
> Amateurs currency have access to 420-450 MHz, an even larger band. If any of that were to be re-assigned, in theory it would be easier to get more channels or larger channels (there's no technical reason you could operate at 50kHz or 100kHz in that band, for example). Opening up even 2 MHz of spectrum could mean tens of thousands of additional stations could get on the air or new or existing licensees could get larger, faster channels.
I worry about slippery slope it would create. AFAIU, opening up those few MHz out of amateur band would let tens of thousands of commercial station to pop up... and the band would get crowded again, leading to pleads for the amateurs to release couple more MHz, until eventually amateurs are no more in this part of the spectrum.
During emergencies, those amateur radio operators provide serious public service communications. When the cellphones go down - or are overloaded - ham radio comes to the fore. There's a surprising number of hams who organize local and regional communications networks.
Tiny community? 630,000 licensed hams in the USA ... about 2.5 hams for every thousand adults. Very roughly, about the same number of hams as there are police officers in America.
These hams often provide communications to such events as marathons (where people are spread out across a city), regional bike races (which sometimes happen where there's no cell phone service), as well as back-up communications during such troubles as forest fires.
Those hams who check into 2-meter emergency response networks are the people who your community will depend when the phone system croaks.
To add to this discussion, most of the frequency bands allocated to amateur radio are not super useful. The 2m band is basically only good for high-ish power (>1w) land mobile communications because the antennas are fairly large. The aeronautical band right next to it is only there because when it was started, the Very in VHF wasn't hyperbole. UHF is actually much better for them because you don't need a huge antenna sticking out into the wind stream but can get more or less the same range. Similarly, the lower bands are basically useless outside of their current amateur radio purpose because nobody is going to carry around a 20m dipole to connect to their cellphone or wifi router. The only exception would be maybe the 13cm through 1.2cm bands which I could see the telcos gunning for in a few years.
So to argue the other side of this, what happens when the internet is not available? Wireless communication is critical in Emergency situations, assuming the internet will always be there misses the point of the amateur band.
(a) Recognition and enhancement of the value of the amateur service to the public as a voluntary noncommercial communication service, particularly with respect to providing emergency communications.
(b) Continuation and extension of the amateur's proven ability to contribute to the advancement of the radio art.
(c) Encouragement and improvement of the amateur service through rules which provide for advancing skills in both the communication and technical phases of the art.
(d) Expansion of the existing reservoir within the amateur radio service of trained operators, technicians, and electronics experts.
(e) Continuation and extension of the amateur's unique ability to enhance international goodwill.
My father was a HAM operator, and I've seen the value first hand.
Not only do the operators themselves provide value in that they have alternative means for communicating in an emergency but most of them possess skills that come in handy during an emergency or in remote areas.
For example, they understand radio waves, the radio spectrum, and how waves travel through space. I remember my father telling me as a child how some signals travel outwards from the source in all directions, some waves travel in a straight line, and some will follow the curvature of the Earth. I remember him telling me that on the ground during 9-11 there were so many Nextel walkie-talkie's at ground zero (all of them with their signal power maxxed-out) and as a result of all the interference nobody could get a meaningful signal out.
Lots of HAM operators also understand circuitry, logic, programming, properties of electromagnetic fields, complex wiring, complex electro-mechanical assemblies, heavy mechanical assemblies like towers/antennas. They're also incredibly passionate, and mostly understand and respect the importance of strict regulatory compliance.
In short, when shit hits the fan and the EMP's start taking everything out we're gonna need someone to fire up some good ol' fashioned logistics/networking in a jiffy... And they HAM crowd is going to be the only one capable, willing, and eager to do that.
What are you really going to realistically do with just 3mhz of spectrum that will benefit more people than it does now with its existing use. Serious question.
I suggest reading up on how it’s used before making assumptions.
I would argue that an open 2M ham band is of more civic utility than just about any of the other amateur radio bands. It's very useful in emergency situations and for two way comms it remote regions without telecom. The radios can be extremely portable and with local repeater network have a good effective range.
The comparison to IRC would be more apropos for the HF bands.
There's quite a few, but since they're set aside for esoteric weirdos who should just go on IRC, they're presumably on borrowed time as far as you're concerned.
Not with the same characteristics. Either they are limited on power, limited on range, equipment is very expensive, or are heavily impacted by solar / weather.
Nah. 2m is an excellent general purpose, medium-range communications band. The next closest bands on either end are 6m and 70cm, both of which have different characteristics (70cm doesn't do well with buildings, and 6m is too long for good handheld antennas).
Today there was a global Vodafone outage. I had no Internet access either through my mobile phone and my home fiber connection...
Would've been nice to have a radio handy.
Wow, I didn't know that about Japan. It makes sense. Tons of amateurs everywhere are using Yagi-Uda antennas, would make sense that they have a strong radio culture having contributed so much.
“Just go do $OTHER_THING” implies the commenter already has the solution figured out, and wants to know why others aren’t implementing their solution. It’s the antithesis of an “honest question“.
I understand it may be an active community, but it's tiny. Why should this valuable spectrum be set aside for this purpose?
Just go on IRC.