CONFIDENTIAL There was a meeting at the State Department this morning of Working Group 4C of the "nominated" US delegation for WRC-03, including Paul Rinaldo, at which the federal government parties made what they describe as their final effort toward a compromise on 7 MHz. The result is not acceptable to us and we will have to so inform the FCC. As a brief recap, the US proposals for WRC-03 are the result of a deliberative process between the NTIA (federal parties), the FCC (civil parties such as amateurs), and the State Department. Months ago the FCC WRC-03 Advisory Committee endorsed the recommendation that is the most favorable to the amateur service, so-called CPM Method A. The initial discussions in the Radio Conference Subcommittee (RCS) of the Interdepartment Radio Advisory Committee (IRAC), the principal advisor to the NTIA on WRC preparations, reflected a preference for a "no change" (NOC) proposal. However, that eventually became "no proposal," which is better for us than for the US to be actively proposing NOC (as is Australia and some other administrations) but is a far cry from the support for a worldwide 300-kHz amateur allocation that we have enjoyed in the past. Last fall the NTIA communicated its "no proposal" view to the FCC. Thus the process was deadlocked. Since then we have been arguing and urging, via both the FCC and the NTIA, that the US can and should do better for its amateurs. The waters have been muddied by the desire of broadcasters to tie Agenda item 1.23, the 7 MHz realignment issue, with Agenda Item 1.36, a review of the adequacy of HF BC allocations between 4 and 10 MHz. Nearly all of the rest of the world takes the view that the job of WRC-03 is to receive a report on the adequacy of HF BC allocations in this frequency range and to commission studies prior to WRC-07, the preliminary agenda for which calls for a review of allocations in the 4-10 MHz range. The US, inexplicably, argued at the CPM that the WRC-07 agenda item ought to be dropped and the HF BC allocation issue settled at WRC-03. This continues to be the view of the federal parties, albeit for differing reasons: apparently the broadcasters are fearful that their influence is going to wane prior to WRC-07 and the fixed/mobile interests want to settle it now, once and for all, and not have to deal with it again in four years. The upshot of this is a compromise by the federal parties that calls for 50 kHz additional for broadcasting on a secondary basis at 5850-5900 kHz (an extension of the existing 5900-6200 kHz BC band), 100 kHz additional for broadcasting on a primary basis but shared with fixed/mobile on a secondary basis at 9340-9400 and 9900-9940 kHz (an extension of the existing 9400-9900 kHz BC band), and the following arrangement at 7 MHz: 7000-7100 same as now 7100-7200 shared amateur/fixed/mobile worldwide, all primary 7200-7300 BC in Regions 1 and 3, amateur in Region 1 7300-7400 BC worldwide 7400-7500 BC in Regions 1 and 3, fixed/mobile in Region 2 This falls well short of what we need and fails to satisfy two of the factors that were identified in the CPM Report as conditioning the search for a viable solution: * any solution requiring sharing of spectrum between the amateur and broadcasting services is not desirable, since experience has shown that this is unacceptable in the long run; and * the entire 300 kHz is required in Region 2 for the amateur service [any sharing within Region 2 would reduce the amount of spectrum available to the amateur service]. It is worth noting that the support for the European Common Proposal on Agenda Item 1.23 is now up to 22 administrations. That is to say, there are 22 administrations in Europe, where the amateur service now has only 100 kHz, that are prepared to be more generous to the amateur service than are the federal parties in the United States. This is in addition to the 12 CITEL administrations that have signed onto the Inter-American Proposal originally proposed by Canada and a few administrations elsewhere that have indicated their support for one or another of the methods that achieve our objectives. I will be conferring with Paul and Chris to set up appointments at the FCC and, if we can get them, the NTIA to see whether we can improve on the federal parties' "final" compromise position. We will also consider what we can do on the Hill and in the executive branch. It won't be easy, as the broadcasters in particular have their heels dug in. Also, I emphasize again that a US proposal of NOC would be far more detrimental than for the US to make no proposal, as disappointing as the latter would be to all of us. David Sumner, K1ZZ