The following news is not ready for public release but it's such good news that I wanted you to hear it. As a member of the US delegation, ARRL Technical Relations Specialist Jon Siverling, WB3ERA is currently attending a meeting of CITEL PCC.II in Bogota, Colombia where preparations for WRC-12 are underway. As you know, we managed to overcome the opposition of the U.S. Coast Guard in order to get the U.S. to support a proposal for an amateur secondary allocation around 500 kHz, specifically at 461-469 and 471-478 kHz. This resulted principally from the hard and effective work of Chief Technology Officer Brennan Price, N4QX and Jon. The U.S. proposed this as the basis for an Inter-American Proposal (IAP) under WRC-12 agenda item 1.23. Under CITEL rules, the support of six countries is required for an IAP. The news from Bogota earlier this week was that Canada had agreed to support the U.S. proposal. Canada was an early supporter of a slightly more favorable secondary allocation at 472-487 kHz, but was willing to go along with the U.S. Brazil also agreed with this approach. Yesterday, three more countries signed on: Argentina, the Dominican Republic and Uruguay. This gets us to the magic figure of six countries needed to turn the proposal into an IAP. Additional CITEL member states undoubtedly will sign on. The documentation has not yet made its way through the PCC.II Plenary, which is why public release would be premature - so please keep it confidential until you get word that it's official. Both Brennan and Jon deserve enormous credit for this accomplishment. While we still face an uphill battle internationally, gaining the support one of the major regional telecommunications organizations this early in the process improves our chances for achieving an allocation at WRC-12. 73, Dave Sumner, K1ZZ