FCC Rejects Request for Amateur Frequencies

In the Things That Make You Go Hmmmmm department, Miller Motorsports of Utah requested Special Temporary Authority to use a handful of frequencies in the 70 cm amateur radio band for a race to be held at the end of May. I guess they didn't think these frequencies were in use, so they just asked the FCC for authorization to use them: 448.525, 448.650, 448.060, 448.290 and 448.610 MHz.

The ARRL objected and the FCC turned down the request, as reported by the ARRL web site.

This story really had me scratching my head. How could someone put together a proposal like this in one of the more popular ham bands? Then it occurred to me that the Amateur Radio Service is authorized to use the 70 cm band on a secondary basis. The primary user is the Federal radiolocation service. (See FCC Part 97.301) It seems that the ham radio community often forgets this...even though we have lots of repeaters and simplex operation on the 440 MHz band, we have a secondary status on the band.

So maybe they looked around and figured that the radiolocation service wasn't all that active, making these frequencies a good choice for race communciations. Of course, the Miller Motorsports proposal was a poorly formed idea and the FCC made the right call by rejecting it.

73, Bob K0NR