IARU Counsels Restraint on French Threat to 2-Meter Band

The 2019 World Radicommunication Conference's preparatory group, meeting this month in Turkey, will consider for inclusion on the WRC-2023 agenda a proposal from France to give the Aeronautical Mobile Service secondary access to a wide variety of frequencies, including the 2-meter amateur band.

But the International Amateur Radio Union (IARU) is urging amateurs to allow their national associations and the IARU itself work to educate various telecommunication agencies about why the proposed sharing is inappropriate on the 2-meter band. It also points out that there is a lot of misinformation on social media and that the proposal would not reallocate the 144-MHz band, but allow for sharing "while ensuring the protection of existing services…"

The Radio Society of Great Britain (RSGB) that even though the French proposal "is not an eviction or reallocation" of amateurs, it is still "unwelcome and presents significant challenges," particularly because sharing with airborne station is difficult "due to the altitudes and long free-space distances involved."