News from Geneva 4 November

The 2015 World Radiocommunications Conference commenced on Monday morning at 11 AM. Over 3800 delegates from 162 ITU member countries and 136 ITU sector members are meeting for the next four weeks to discuss a wide range of radio communications issues including several of direct relevance to amateurs. The outcome of these discussions is a revision of the ITU Radio Regulations which in an international treaty covering most aspects of communications between 8.3 kHz and 275 GHz.

The amateur service is represented at WRC-15 by amateurs who are members of national delegations as well as representatives of the International Amateur Radio Union. Topics of interest to amateurs include agenda item 1.4 which is a proposal to allocate a new secondary allocation to the amateur service around 5300 kHz as well as agenda item 1.18 which covers a proposed new allocation for vehicle radar systems between 77.5 and 78 GHz that is an existing primary amateur allocation. There are also other issues which require some consideration by the amateur delegates and it is important that amateurs are able to contribute and be part of these discussions.

Progress on the various agenda items starts with the formalities of approval of chairman of the working and sub-working groups, creation of working groups assigned to each agenda item and document introduction by contributing delegates. These are important steps in beginning the sometimes difficult or delicate negotiations that are required before most changes to the radio regulations can be made.

The actual work of studying each of the input contributions and developing consensus positions is done by sub-working groups who deal with individual agenda items. For amateurs, the most challenging issue will be AI 1.4 where there is strong opposition to a new secondary HF allocation. Work has begun on this issue and will continue over the coming days and weeks. For most agenda items it will take some time before any firm conclusions are reached as the issues are complex.

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