This was the second meeting of the Working Party of the US WRC-03 delegation dealing with HF issues. It was chaired by Don Messer of IBB. There were about a dozen people present, with Paul and me the only ones from outside the federal government. Although this was styled as a delegation meeting, the delegation has not yet been named (the administration is late in doing this). Everyone present except me expects to be on the delegation. The meeting was divided into two parts: a "public" part in which non-controversial items were covered and a "government only" part in which options on Agenda Item 1.23 would be explored. We were invited to participate in the first part and then to make our pitch on AI 1.23, but we were not invited to stay for the discussion of options. Paul and I made our pitch, emphasizing that the 40-meter band is the only amateur allocation between 4 and 10 MHz and the only primary allocation between 4 and 14 MHz. The problem we needed solved was the large number of "interference hours" resulting from the overlap with Region 1 and 3 broadcasters. I said that the US had supported the 300-kHz worldwide amateur requirement at WARC-79 and WARC-92 and had proposed a downward shift in the amateur band at those conferences; we were prepared to accept such a shift this time as well, since a shift by both amateurs and broadcasters meant the two services would share the pain, but that idea had been dropped after fixed and mobile services representatives said their allocations just below 7000 kHz were more critical than above 7350 kHz. I wanted the fixed/mobile people, who were the majority in the room, to understand that we had already made an accommodation on their behalf. I said there were about 450,000 US amateurs licensed to use the band and that this number would likely reach 700,000 immediately upon the Morse requirement being dropped. I said we knew of 36 countries that are supporting one of the three CPM Methods that we prefer, A, D, and B. We were asked several questions, including whether we could share with fixed and mobile. (The answer is "it depends." If fixed and mobile are in Regions 1 and 3, as in Method B at 7200-7300 kHz, this is clearly better for US amateurs than trying to coexist with broadcasters in those regions. However, the introduction of fixed and mobile into the band in Region 2 could be a problem, depending on the nature of those operations.) Don Messer once again floated the idea of having the amateurs move up and the broadcasters move down, which we (to his annoyance) had managed to keep out the CPM Report; I said we regarded 7000-7100 kHz, which was kept almost entirely clear of out-of-band broadcasting, as the cornerstone of the allocation and we couldn't see giving it up for spectrum in which out-of-band broadcasting was already rampant. After the Q&A session we were asked to leave, so of course we withdrew with thanks to the group for hearing us out. As we understand the state of play, as a result of the various pressures we have brought to bear the NTIA position has moved from "no proposal" to "there will probably be a proposal but we're still working on what it will be." We have seen and have been given the opportunity to comment on one internal draft proposal, which is based on the European Common Proposal (Method B) but with a stronger bias toward fixed/mobile. We provided a comprehensive analysis including some suggestions for improvement. We don't know whether we will have additional opportunities to offer comment, but the DoD in particular is very supportive of keeping us in the loop. Whether the US broadcasters are willing to go along with a 7 MHz proposal will depend on whether they get allocations proposals elsewhere in the 4-10 MHz range under Agenda Item 1.36. Conversely, the willingness of fixed/mobile interests to go along with realignment at 7 MHz will depend on how threatened they feel elsewhere in the 4-10 MHz range. There is another meeting of the group on Thursday of this week to which we have not been invited. Of course, we'll do our best to find out what happens so we can decide what to do next. Dave K1ZZ -----Original Message----- From: Harrison, Joel (1st Vice President) Sent: Tuesday, April 01, 2003 1:41 PM To: arrl-odv Subject: [ARRL-ODV:8604] D.C. Meeting Dave, Any report from the meeting you & Paul attended last Thursday in D.C.?? Joel