CONSULTATION 2024-2: 40m Band Plan Harmonisation Challenges

CONSULTATION 2024-2: 40m Band Plan Harmonisation Challenges

The WIA as part of its involvement with IARU Region 3 is sponsoring a discussion on the future directions of the 40m band plan. It is now seeking feedback from members on a number of issues relating to the band to then use as input to the IARU Region 3 conference in October 2024.

The Amateur Service 7000-7200 kHz band is considered an example of one of the more dis-organised bands on a global basis.

The main problems affecting the basic 40m band plan alignment can be summarised as:

1) inconsistent IARU member society band plans.
2) specific national regulatory conditions/constraints (e.g. the FCC in the USA)
3) legacy band plan allocations that haven’t been revised following the band expansion granted at WRC2003 (prior to which the 40m band was only 100 kHz wide)

In addition to these basic issues, the other more recent challenge has been the shift in general amateur radio activity towards wider use of data modes of communication, which has called into question whether sufficient band space has been defined to support this level of data mode activity on the 40m band.

It is through attempting to reduce the inconsistencies and making a concerted effort to deliver a harmonised global 40m band plan that many of the problems could be solved. At the same time, it is worth reconsidering the amount of spectrum allocated per activity to ensure that each mode has a fair share of the available spectrum based on current activity.

The consultation paper is now available below and members and general amateur radio operators are both invited to respond via the tac@wia.org.au Link email address no later than the 6th of September with your feedback.

The paper is available to read via this link: Link

Page Last Updated: Friday, 19 Jul 2024 at 15:10 hours by Webmaster

Click Here To Return To Previous Page