The International Amateur Radio Union (IARU) says “significant progress” was made during World Radiocommunication Conference 2019 (WRC-19) preparations that took place earlier this month at International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Headquarters in Geneva. But the IARU cautioned that a lot remains to be done before the “reservations and concerns of regulators and spectrum users are adequately satisfied.”

The team representing IARU in Working Party 5A (WP 5A) of ITU Radiocommunication Sector (ITU-R) consisted of amateurs from Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Ireland, Japan, Norway, the Netherlands, United Kingdom, and the US. For IARU, the main focus was on the WRC-19 agenda item that will consider an Amateur Radio allocation in Region 1 from 50 to 54 MHz that is similar to the one available in regions 2 and 3. The current, mainly secondary, allocation of 50 to 52 MHz in most European countries is a regional agreement.

Delegates to the meeting considered input documents from IARU, France, the Russian Federation, and Switzerland. A rough consensus was achieved on the text that will provide the technical basis for discussions concerning the access to 50-54 MHz for the Amateur Service in Region 1. Additionally, some administrations accepted an IARU-proposed method to calculate the spectrum needs of the Amateur Service at 50 to 54 MHz, but more information to justify the requested bandwidth will be required, the IARU said.

For sharing studies, particularly in relation to the Land Mobile Service and Radiolocation applications in the 50-54 MHz allocation, a mutually agreed-upon propagation model remains to be determined. No major objections remain to sharing with analog television broadcasting in the 50-54- MHz band in Region 1, provided that a time-limited field strength limit is applied.

Other key issues affecting the Amateur Service remain to be addressed prior to WRC-19. These include securing protection for Amateur Service primary allocations at 24 GHz and 47 GHz and minimizing possible interference arising from Wireless Power Transmission (WPT) for the charging of electric vehicles.

Following the meeting of Working Party 5A and other meetings related to the work of ITU-R Study Group 5, the ITU hosted the first of three planned Inter-Regional Workshops on WRC-19 Preparation. IARU Vice President Ole Garpestad, LA2RR, who also attended the WP 5A meeting, represented the IARU at the workshop to hear reports on progress by the regional telecommunication organizations. -- Thanks to the IARU