ARLA/CLUSTER: Radioamadores voluntários em comunicações de emergência preocupados com a retirada dos 70 cm nos E.U.A.

[João Gonçalves Costa]

Ham Radio volunteers worry about spectrum plan
 
Across Alabama, emergency communications systems fell silent this week when tornadoes knocked down antennas and cell phone towers. Amateur radio operators are helping to restore emergency communication in some of the areas hardest hit by the storms. But those volunteers say their ability to provide that help is threatened by a new bill in Congress - NPR's Joel Rose reports. 

When Hurricane Katrina came ashore in 2005, it destroyed cell phone towers and electrical infrastructure. That left law enforcement and relief agencies without a viable way to communicate — until amateur radio operators stepped in.

Hundreds of amateur radio operators – or hams, as they call themselves – poured into Louisiana and Mississippi from all over the country, bringing their own portable antennas and amplifiers to temporarily replace what the storm had wiped out.

"They set up communications for the agencies, both governmental and relief agencies that were trying to help people there," says Kay Craigie who is the president of the American Radio Relay League, an advocacy group that represents hams . "And they stayed there for weeks under very, very difficult conditions."

Craigie says Hurricane Katrina is just one example of how volunteer ham operators have responded to emergencies all over the country. But she says their ability to provide that help is being inadvertently threatened – in the name of improved emergency communication.

Peter King is a Republican congressman from New York, and the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee. At a hearing in March, King lamented that police, firefighters and other first responders have trouble talking to each other during emergencies.

"As we approach the 10th anniversary of September 11th, public safety must be allocated sufficient spectrum so that a national, interoperable public safety wireless broadband network can finally be built," he said.

King is sponsoring a bill called the Broadband for First Responders Act of 2011. The measure would take some of the broadcast spectrum that was freed up by the transition to digital television and set it aside to build a new emergency communications system. That idea has wide support in both parties, and both houses of Congress. To pay for it, King's bill proposes auctioning off another band of broadcast frequencies that are sometimes used by first responders. The problem is, those same frequencies are used by ham radio operators, too.

Read the full NPR article by Joel Rose 
Ham Radio Volunteers Worry About Spectrum Plan
http://www.npr.org/2011/04/30/135873302/ham-radio-volunteers-worry-about-spectrum-plan 

or listen to the story (4min 49sec) at

http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=135873302&m=135874439