Topband: Am I the only one in step?

[Donald Chester]

> Mike - I agree the objective, but the reality is a little harder!
>
> The 160 allocations across Europe, for example, vary widely. 1800-1810 is
not generally part of the allocated spectrum. Various countries have various
parts of the band with varying power privileges (you'll have seen
http://www.iaru-r1.org/index.php/documents/Documents/HF/160m-allocations-in-
IARU-R1-rev-7-Jan-2015.pdf/ I am sure )
>
IARU tried at WRC 2015 to get an agenda item for WRC 2019 on the global
harmonisation of the 160m band. We failed - there was simply not enough
support from national administrations, many of whom could not see the
priority. So although IARU can continue to seek harmonisation, the reality
is that this is not going to happen any time soon, sadly. 
>
>Don, G3BJ / G5W (Presidnet IARU Region 1)

Maybe someone living in Europe can tell us what are the services that have priority on 1800-1810 and 1840-2000 in Regions 1 and 3 that seem to be such sacred cows that amateurs remain severely restricted?  Are those frequencies actually being used for anything that serves a useful purpose, or is this merely a case of administrative inertia and intransigence? Ever since the demise of LORAN 35 years ago, I have yet to hear any non-amateur traffic on those frequencies, other than occasional low-power fishnet beacons. I should think that if they were actually in widespread use in other parts of the world for essential non-amateur communication, that occasionally some of those signals  would be audible here in N America, as is certainly the case within the 3500-4000 kHz band.

Here in the US, 1705-1800 is reserved for Radiolocation, but that segment is all but devoid of signals of any kind. The GPS system rendered Radiolocation in this part of the spectrum obsolete years ago and the beacon transmitters eventually all went dark.  The FCC went so far recently as to re-allocate 1900-2000 to amateurs on a primary basis, deleting Radiolocation altogether, which had previously shared that segment with amateurs and radiolocation the primary user.  Not to mention the LORAN radionavigation system that was taken off the band in the early 1980s.

Don k4kyv