[amsat-bb] Re: Fwd: 420 - 450 MHz in Jeopardy!

[Tom Schuessler]

This is a very serious threat as the current administration and current
majority folks on the FCC are bent on making us all pay for what we get free
now, that being broadcast TV and two way communications.  I am in the
broadcast TV profession and we just went through a transition where most
every station in the country had to spend maybe a Million Dollars or more
each to convert to digital broadcasting and in most cases change channels
due to the spectrum repack.  Remember we lost the whole of the 700Mhz UHF
band to broadband and homeland security users.  Now the FCC is pushing a
"Voluntary" relinquishment of an additional 120MHZ of spectrum which would
mean in large markets like Dallas, there would no longer be room for all the
channels currently on the air.  The thing here is that the broadband
providers who will take over this additional spectrum will charge you the
user for some of the same content that you can now get for free via the
broadcast TV spectrum.  They also want your money to communicate person to
person.

Now for 420-450mhz.  since this is pretty much right below the 470Mhz start
of channel 14.  It is not at all inconceivable that in the next 10 years, as
the "spectrum crunch" gets worse, that the whole UHF TV spectrum gets lost
to broadband concerns.  We are next door and don't have all the resources to
fight it.

So fight it we must.  Even if we are secondary users, we are stakeholders
and need to make our voice heard.

Tom Schuessler
2713 Lake Gardens Drive
Irving, Texas  75060
972-986-7456
214-403-1464 (Cell)
n5hyp at arrl.net