Dbowey wrote:
Several thousand unused AM rigs for six meters, and many MHz of
unused VHF spectrum.


Government agencies are hurting for spectrum. Now that the ARRL is under
Homeland Security you need to be thinking about the big frequency grab they are
getting ready to pull. It's far easier to take spectrum from the amateur radio
service than it is to force government agencies to make better use of what they
already have. You are first going to see the ARRL roll over for their new
boss, and give up some of 2 Meters. There are already people there who think
of 2M as "channelized."

Government agencies are hurting bigtime for UHF spectrum, and to a lesser
extent for VHF spectrum. But there is a huge amount of stuff in the HF
bands which is allocated for commercial and government use, which is no
longer used at all. Likewise the VHF-LO business band is mostly dead, and
right now you can get nationwide licenses for VHF-LO channels for a few
hundred bucks at auction.

I'd be happy to trade a chunk of 2M for an equivalent chunk of the VHF-LO
business band. What is going on is not that there is an increasing demand
for channels, but that the demand has changed. 800 MHz is crowded as hell
and everybody wants a chunk. 12 MHz is dead and nobody wants any.

The ARRL should be petitioning to grab some frequencies of our own.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."