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The ARRL has filed comments with the Federal Communications
Commission urging that the 902 to 928 MHz amateur radio band be
protected. ARRL joins hundreds of licensed radio amateurs who
utilize the band in opposing a proposal from NextNav Inc., a
licensee in the 900 MHz Location and Monitoring Service, to
completely reconfigure the 902 to 928 MHz band and replace the LMS
with high powered 5G cellular and related location services.
NextNavs proposal can be found on the ARRL website.  ARRLs comments,
filed by our Washington, D.C. Counsel on behalf of ARRL members and
radio amateurs, point out several problems with NextNavs request,
Contrary to NextNavs assertions, the band is extremely crowded with
millions of devices and transmitters in operation in multiple
services, including the Amateur Service. Adoption of the proposal
would result in either massive interference that would prevent
proper operation or displacement to other bands.  The difficulty is
that there are no other bands known to be available, and in fact,
some of the Amateur operations in this band are here because they
were displaced when a portion of the 420 to 450 MHz band North of
Line A was closed to the Amateur Service some years ago. Others were
displaced from the same band when new Federal Government defense
radars were initiated and continued Amateur secondary operations
would have interfered with their operation.  Pushing amateur radio
out of heavily used spectrum is a risk to public service, ARRL
argues in the comments, When space can be found in this band,
Amateurs employ it to establish wide area voice and some television
signal repeaters.  Others are actively experimenting with digital
mesh networks and associated control links. These networks are a
testbed for digital design and experimentation, but also are
available and used for back up emergency communications purposes.
Still others operate low power beacons for propagation research.
Weak signal work, tuning and experimenting to communicate over the
longest paths with the least power, also is popular and leads to
improvements in equipment.  Mesh networks are becoming increasingly
useful in emergency communications. Just this past week, the ARRL
Utah Section announced that dozens of Amateur Radio Emergency
Service volunteers are working to expand the mesh network around the
state. The needs of participating agencies have evolved to require
more than analog voice and low speed data modes, said ARRL Utah
Section Public Information Coordinator Scott Rosenbush, K7HSR. High
speed mesh networks using AREDN, the Amateur Radio Emergency Data
Network, software will allow amateur radio to play a larger role in
supporting these agencies in emergencies.  The ARRL Utah Section
already has a five county mesh network in place. The proposal from
NextNav make it more difficult to operate networks like this one.
Under NextNavs proposal, the much higher powered transmitters would
be ubiquitous and operating 24/7. The resulting interference would
effectively exclude many of the current Amateur operations that are
operating in the 902 to 928 MHz band.  The FCC docket remains open
for reply comments from the public until September 20, 2024.  As of
September 6, over 800 comments have been filed by Amateurs and
others who use this spectrum.  Links to the articles, comments, and
proposals mentioned in this bulletin can be found in teleprinter,
packet, and Internet versions of 2024 ARRL Bulletin ARLB017.

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