Hello all,
I've just had a long conversation with the guy who's responsible for the
Amateur Service here in France, at the ministry of telecommunications.
The situation is more complicated than I previously announced. In fact,
the ART (French equivelant of OFTEL) has made several demands towards
the Agence Nationale des Frequences (French equivalent of the RA)
regarding the use of the 136 kHz band in France by amateurs.
I phoned the ANF, and nobody there seemed to know what I was talking about!
Well, I'm one of those "bad" journalists who never give up: I gave a
call to the ministry. The minister didn't want to speak to me so they
connected me to the press service. Again, nobody was able to understand
a word about what I was talking about (are we lowfers so bizarre?).
Finally, after five phone calls, around eight or nine different
services, fifteen or so different people and twenty-five times
explaining the same thing, I managed to get a short piece of information
from an official source.
Read this: "the 136 kHz band will definately be allocated to the amateur
service in France. I'm surprised that so many european countries are
already active. However, our request has been published. All we need now
is a signature from the Prime Minister. He does have the papers on his
desk since a couple of months. The question is, how many papers have
been loaded on top of the 136 kHz file..."
So, 136 in France can be authorised tomorrow, like it can be authorised
in December 2000. However, we're quite sure right now that it will be
authorised whatsoever.
Wait and see.
73, Mark, F6JSZ
Editor, French CQ
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