FCC has adopted a new procedure of circulating to the public draft Reports and Orders ahead of the time that they are considered at an upcoming FCC open meeting. In my view this is a great idea of Ajit Pai's and it is about time they threw a little sunshine on their actions.
FCC has released a DRAFT report and order, to be considered at its July 13 Open Meeting, to address the allocation status of the 76-81 GHz band. The 50-page draft report and order is attached, but the relevant portions are paragraphs 13-18 on pages 8 through 11.
Bottom line: Amateur Radio fared
quite
well here. On the upside, Amateurs retained an allocation in the entirety of 76-81 GHz; the FCC is removing the 19-year-old suspension of the use of 76-77 GHz by Amateurs
(imposed
in order to protect
first generation
vehicular radars
)
so as to allow us access to that band once again; and this Order cements the Amateur allocation in the United States for many years to come.
On the downside, the small primary allocation that Amateurs had at 77-77.5 GHz has been reduced to secondary status to match the remainder of the 76-81 GHz segment
, but the secondary status that we have had for many years in the remainder of the band has not been a limiting factor due to the high level of frequency re-use possible as the result of propagation limitations and other factors
. Also, to have a consistent power level among the various services sharing this segment
,
FCC has imposed a power limit of 55 dBm EIRP (which translates in the proposed rules to 316 watts EIRP). The proposal that Robert Bosch, LLC made was that there was ample compatibility between vehicular radars and Amateur Radio
and that no power limit was necessary for Amateur Radio
, but several automotive manufacturers asked that Amateur Radio be ousted from the band. Delphi Automotive asked for a power limit
. An
n individual amateur indicated that some Amateur operations in the band were currently at between 66-71 dBm. I have not checked with the ARRL laboratory staff about the impact of
a 316-watt EIRP limit
on Amateur "hilltopping" but will do so shortly.
This was resolved reasonably favorably to Amateur Radio largely because of the coordinated support between Bosch and ARRL.
I consider it a win for Amateur Radio overall.
73, Chris W3KD