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<H1>NZ ATV to be forced to go digital </H1>
<P><FONT face=Tahoma>Digital Amateur Television is coming to New Zealand, but
not necessarily because the Kiwi ham radio community wants to make the
change.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Tahoma>ZL Hams will soon be forced to go digital if they wish to
continue Amateur Fast Scan Television operations. </FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Tahoma><BR>This after government regulators announce that all
analogue modulated TV transmissions in the VHF and UHF broadcast bands, which
include Channel 39 used by ham radio, will close down in March 2015, or at some
earlier date. </FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Tahoma>At that time the upper end of the New Zealand UHF
television allocation will be cleared of television, so that the vacated
spectrum can be used for next-generation mobile communications.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Tahoma>One consequence of these decisions is that the existing
television transmissions will need to convert to digital so as to fit into about
half of the present spectrum, requiring that their transmission parameters need
to be more closely defined than at present. For the Amateur Television service
this means that each Radio License for analogue-modulated TV needs to be
replaced by a Spectrum License for analogue-modulated TV.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Tahoma>As part of the process, our government telecommunications
regulator has cancelled all of the existing Radio Licenses for Channel 39 TV
Repeaters. Operators of Channel 39 TV Repeaters need to close them down to avoid
receiving an <BR>Infringement Notices from the regulatory agency.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Tahoma>Those wishing to operate their analogue-modulated Channel
39 ATV repeaters between now and the 2015 Digital TV Switch-Over, will be
required to apply for a Spectrum License. However this Spectrum License for
analogue ATV <BR>transmitters will only exist until the Analogue shut down date.
Ham Radio access to New Zealand Channel 39 which runs from 614 to 622 MHz was
made by footnote to the nations telecommunications regulations many years ago
when a chunk of the 432 MHz band was taken from the amateur radio
service.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Tahoma>At this time, its not known how many of the nation's
Amateur Television Repeaters will apply for a new Spectrum License to at least
temporarily keep their analogue systems operational and on the air.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Tahoma></FONT> </P>
<P><FONT face=Tahoma>Fonte: WIA</FONT></P></DIV></BODY></HTML>