Attached is a letter from President Craigie, drafted with input from CEO Sumner, General Counsel Imlay and me, to Decker Anstrom, the Head of the United States Delegation to WRC-12. The letter formally conveys our substantive and procedural concerns regarding the United States proposal to allocate 5250-5450 kHz to radiolocation for oceanographic radar purposes.
Both Chris and I have made informal inquiries into what happened here. We understand that the NTIA did not timely release its proposal for vetting before the final meeting of the WAC had occurred. This left the State Department to act as it saw fit. Because the May 17-20 meeting of CITEL PCC.II was the last meeting at which proposals for most WRC-12 agenda items could be introduced and considered as potential Inter-American proposals, State made a rushed decision. I think it is somewhat likely that State made the decision considering only the international table of allocations, which does not reflect our privileges on 60 meters.
While we await a response, my next step will be to approach the domestic public and private sector proponents, NOAA and CODAR. At least NOAA, and perhaps CODAR, will be in attendance at the Working Party 5B meeting in Geneva starting June 13. So will I. Both proponents have been unusually receptive to amateur concerns during preparatory work, and I'd like to get their perspective on what happened. It's entirely possible they changed their minds, but given that the US is proposing to allocate substantially more than the 100 kHz they indicated they needed between 3-6 MHz, I have a feeling something was lost in the rushed process of determining a proposal to send to Santo Domingo.
I understand that an appropriate news story for ARRL Web is being developed.
73 de Brennan HB9/N4QX