STATEMENT ONE
We the undersigned call upon our IARU national member societies, representatives, to heed the wishes of CW groups and operators to:
- Retain or increase existing CW allocations, not reduce them
- Regain exclusive CW sub bands in each region
- Vote against the WIA 40m Band Plan proposal
Note 1: The existing CW allocations allow CW to be used on any frequency within the amateur radio bands.
Note 2: The CW sub bands that need to be exclusive to CW include 7000-7030 (Region 3), 7000-7040 (Region 1), 7000-7070 (Region 2) and if any changes are made we’d like to see this increased to 7000-7050 in Regions 1 & 3 and made truly exclusive and clear of pirates.
Note 3: The WIA 40m “Global Harmonization” proposal deprives CW of all of point 1 and much of point 2 above and thus seeks to remove those existing privileges.
SIGNED BY 112 CW OPERATORS at short notice in Australia, Cambodia, India, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Thailand
NOTE: Since this Statement was issued, the WIA modified its proposal regarding Point 1 which was accepted.
STATEMENT TWO
We the undersigned call for a Vote of No Confidence in the current Chairman of the HF Band Plan Committee of IARU Region 3, VK5GR on the basis of:
- Incompetence in band plan research, management and consultation which included “3 years of meeting and research with the leading lights of WSJT and WinLink” but none with other groups, notably failing to ascertain the needs and interests of the CW community
- Thereby causing unnecessary friction and controversy among a large section of Amateur Radio operators by disregarding the interests of non-digital operators in drafting, publishing and promoting his Band Plan
- Pushing forward band plans based on insufficient data and flawed collection methods and without giving sufficient time for consultations ahead of Region 3 Conference causing unnecessary stress and anguish to CW operators who are forced to defend their interests at short notice
SIGNED BY 111 CW OPERATORS at short notice in Australia, Cambodia, India, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Thailand
STATEMENT THREE
We the undersigned call upon our IARU national member societies at the IARU Region 3 Conference in Bangkok via their representatives to heed the wishes of CW groups and operators to:
- Look at the untenable 30m situation with SSB pirates and take action*
- Regain exclusive CW sub bands from digital data modes expansion*
- Coordinate Region 3 band plans to make 7000-7040 exclusive to CW*
*1: Take a receiver into the conference to demonstrate full coverage of 30m by SSB pirates primarily from Indonesia otherwise play submitted recordings. Noting that 30m is the only band open 24/7/365 throughout solar cycle for nation wide communications in Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia and Australia.
*2: This is particularly important on 12m and 17m where digital modes, instead of making use of their existing allocation that is largely unused, have taken over the top 5kHz of CW reducing the CW band to only 20kHz! This is not enough to accommodate DX split operations and QRM-free CW QSO.
*3: CW operations suffer from QRM from both digital mode incursions and the inability to contact digital users as they do not give their callsigns in a universally compatible mode CW, in addition to SSB pirates which only use the CW portion of the bands.
NOTE: We would like to see the return of legal requirement for digital modes to send a CW ID, otherwise for digital modes which appear to be largely unattended, as evidenced listening on bands at all hours of night when operators are asleep, thus not meeting the ITU Radio Regulations definition of Amateur Radio, be assigned frequencies outside the amateur radio bands. Alternatively, Amateur Radio National IARU Member Societies should focus on expanding the amateur radio bands to accommodate all modes, such as 7200-7300 shared worldwide with broadcasting and for those already having 7200-7300 expanded to 7400 on the same basis as successful hitherto, 10150-10350 or more on a Secondary Basis to the Fixed Service building on the successful 40 years of 10100-10150 having been shared on that basis without a single complaint to ITU from Primary Users (Fixed Service) and thus enabling the band to have SSB up to 200W PEP above 10150, expanding 18168-18350 as Secondary to Fixed Service again using the 40 years 30m success as example of sharing, and 24700-24890 again on the same basis as Secondary to Fixed and Land Mobile services. This can once again be achieved at ITU Administrative Radio Conference if there is work done to coordinate a position, not least given that HF is now largely vacant compared to the WARC of the late 1970s which awarded us the “WARC” Bands. In any case, the current unnecessary and harmful trend of expansion of digital modes at the expense of CW must be stopped. This even occurs with data modes below 28070 on 10m where they have unused space all the way up to 28199. Again there is no ability to inform such stations of harmful QRM to CW without obtaining a computer and modem for each and every digital mode, hence the requirement to use a CW ID for all digital modes should be reinstated.
SIGNED BY 112 CW OPERATORS at very short notice in Australia, Cambodia, India, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Thailand.
NOTE: The callsigns have been redacted from the online publication above, but will be included on the Statements directly delivered to various National Society Officials attending IARU-3 Bangkok.