When looking for additional spectrum one question to ask is, who is there now? In this case there are two answers to that question: what it says on paper and what is reality.

On paper the band is allocated internationally to the meteorological aids, fixed and mobile services. Domestically the allocation is to the government fixed and mobile with one channel, 27860 kHz, available to the forest products radio service on a secondary basis. Mostly of course it's for military, including MARS.

In reality the band is filled with freebanders. Most freebanders stay out of the 10-meter ham band (at least, when they're not using their ham calls). They know what ham radio is (some of them are hams) and while there might be a few who enjoy coming above 28 MHz and baiting hams, most are content to stay below 28 MHz and do their own thing. Most of the "CB" activity we hear in the 10-meter band is by less sophisticated people using CB rigs that happen to have extra channels; they have no idea what frequency they're on. One reason there are so many freebanders and so many "enhanced" CB rigs is that the FCC hasn't figured out how to define what is a ham rig (for which there is no type acceptance and no controls on who can buy one) vs. what is an illegal CB rig. Having hams authorized to operate below 28 MHz could further complicate that issue.

Taking the freebanders first, I share Jim Maxwell's opinion that if hams were to move below 28 MHz the freebanders would feel quite justified in moving above. In fact, even the rumor that we were thinking of doing it could cause that to happen. If you think we have problems with non-ham QRM on 10 meters now, listen below 28 MHz sometime when the band is open and picture that moving up.

But let's make believe the band is used the way the allocation table says. In that case our competition is the military. In the domestic arena, before the FCC could make an allocation it would have to be cleared with the government side, just as with 5 MHz and the 7 MHz realignment. Getting clearance would involve a quid pro quo -- nothing comes free. We might not even know what it was right away, but at some point someone would say, "Well, we gave the hams what they wanted at 27.850 MHz so we don't need to give them what they want at [fill in the blank: 5 MHz, 7 MHz, 430 MHz, 2300 MHz, etc.]." It scares me to death even to raise the subject with them when we have these other issues pending.

In the international arena there's no way to get from here to there at the moment -- the earliest opportunity would be to get it on the agenda for WRC-2007 (as of last week the ITU has decided that the next WRC after 2003 will be in the first half of 2007) but it would be a fight to get it on and again, it would cost something. We would have to decide what it's worth, and we would need to do that with our colleagues in other countries (imagine the chaos if every national amateur radio organization went to its administration separately with a different request for additional spectrum).

There's another, more subtle problem with regard to the international arena. Some administrations, notably in Europe, are inclined to incorporate CB into the amateur service. This is one of the reasons we needed to get Recommendation ITU-R M.1544 adopted before the Morse HF requirement disappears, so there's some international standard for amateur licensing. Float a proposal to make the 27 MHz band part of the amateur service and the response from some will be, "Great idea -- but let's do it the other way around. Let's make the 27 MHz operators part of the amateur service. That way you'll both have more room."

OK, what's it worth to us? I realize opinions may differ on this, but my own is that except for rare occasions such as this coming weekend (the CQWW Phone DX Contest) there isn't enough activity within the existing 10-meter allocation. The Novice CW/RTTY band is lightly loaded most of the time; SSB activity is sparse above 28.6 MHz except during a contest; and even during a contest there isn't much between 29.1 and 29.3 MHz. If we wanted to accommodate broadband digital we could do it within the existing band, which would also help defend it against interlopers. So the additional spectrum, even if we could get it without a fight, wouldn't really add any capability that we couldn't get through a much simpler change in Part 97 to permit broadband digital in a segment of the existing band -- if that's what the folks working in this field want.

By the way, as noted in the IARU spectrum requirements document http://www.iaru.org/ac-spec00.html that been been updated regularly since 1990 (Larry Price, Paul Rinaldo, and I worked on a further revision just this week), AMSAT has long been interested in 29.7-30.0 MHz for satellite downlinks as a way of further reducing what little terrestrial interference they experience in the 29.3-29.5 MHz band. That particular segment has the advantage that it was once part of the ham band. But it's still a daunting task to get it, when weighed against its value.

So that's how I see it. If you still feel that it's worth pursuing, take some time this weekend and listen between the top of the authorized CB band and the bottom of 10 meters, 27.405 - 28.000 MHz. I'm pretty sure that will change your mind.