And John,

Some of the influential voices in the corridors of power where the
negotiating goes on have been industry figures -not always radio
amateurs themselves but who are sympathetic to our cause. Often they are
being themselves influenced by their own "senior techies" and science
guys who recognise the added value. It matters that they have a good
story to tell when it matters. The bankers who buy spectrum don't
usually see it our way regardless of the exchange rate of the Euro!

 

On Wed, 2012-02-15 at 20:55 +0100, John Rabson wrote:
> On 15 Feb 2012, at 19:16CET, mal hamilton wrote:
> 
> > It has been stated on here that although it has been agreed to
> > allocate a MF
> > slot to radio amateurs, national governments might take a different
> > view and
> > not implement it. 
> 
> 
> Mal,
> 
> 
> This has always been the case.  You are talking about governments of
> sovereign states, who have the authority to decide not to allocate a
> particular band. 
> 
> 
> To take some examples: 
> 
> 
> 1) for many years French amateurs did not have access to 160m,
> 
> 
> 2) we still do not have a 3.4GHz allocation,
> 
> 
> 3) what sort of access we have to 50MHz depends on where we live -  it
> ranges from a useful power level to none at all,
> 
> 
> 3) even now the USA does not have a 136kHz band.
> 
> 
> From time to time you have referred to the EU as if it were a sort of
> United States of Europe. Suppose this did happen, there is no
> guarantee that the amateur service would be regulated by the federal
> government. We would not necessarily have the equivalent of the
> American FCC - the matter might be reserved to the Member States.
> 
> 
> Be grateful that the historical record of the UK licensing authority
> has been favourable to the amateur service.
> 
> 
> John F5VLF

-- 
73 es gd dx de Pat G4GVW, Nr Felixstowe, East Coast, UK