Radio Amateur Society of Australia - News Release - "The Enemy Within"

[vk3ymml]

Source: https://vkradioamateurs.org/wp-content/ ... Rel3.0.pdf

Radio Amateur Society of Australia
News Release: February 16th 2025

"The enemy within"

It gives us no pleasure to write this article. We all believed the WIA represented us and fought to protect and win new privileges. Our most recent meeting with the ACMA confirmed what some have suspected for some time.

The WIA made a deal with the Defence and the ACMA which included denying all Australian amateurs access to the 5 MHz band.

There are almost nine years of demonstrable inaction by the WIA on 5 MHz. RASA has been lobbying the ACMA for access to this band for years. We always felt there was something unspoken, some sort of brick wall impeding any meaningful discussion. In December 2024 we presented a detailed investigative article on the history of 5 MHz; from the World Radio Conference 2015 (WRC-15) to present day. We’ve reproduced it below for completeness.

Last month RASA met with the ACMA and presented further arguments for 5 MHz access. And that’s when the final piece of the puzzle dropped into place.

We have now received confirmation from separate sources that the WIA delegate, Mr Dale Hughes chaired the IARU Drafting Committee for WRC15 with Australian Defence and ACMA representatives where the decision was made to indefinitely block Australian Amateur access to the 5 MHz band. This took place in 2015, and details of this agreement were never shared with Australian Amateurs, the sector the WIA delegate was supposed to represent.

The ACMA were opposed to Amateur Radio gaining access to 5 MHz, yet they approved it whilst being clear that Australian amateurs would not be granted access. Clearly, the WIA supported this position.

It also begs the question: why did the ACMA vote in favour of 5 MHz when they were so clearly opposed to it?

The WIA never publicly revealed these facts to members or the broader amateur radio community. It also explains why the WIA went quiet on 5 MHz thereafter.

This all seems peculiar. In the lead up to the 2015 World Radio Conference the WIA made much fanfare of how this new allocation was on its way, how great it was going to be, and how this justified the significant expenditure for the delegation to be sent to Geneva. It was money well spent.

So much for “we represent you”.

Was there a mandate for the WIA representative to be negotiating such a position on behalf of all amateurs. Is this the WIA’s idea of sector representation? Spend thousands of members' dollars attending an international conference, fail to fight for its members, and then suppress the outcome.

This directly reinforces the other findings and the correspondence we received from the Minister last year.

“ACMA released its decision paper on this issue in December 2020. However, as Defence’s use of the 5 MHz band has not changed since this decision was made, and in consideration of the Australian Delegation’s agreement to protect Defence’s interests in the 5 MHz band in perpetuity, there does not appear to be a case to revisit the ACMA’s decision to not support amateur service use of the 5 MHz band at this time.”

Ref: Letter from Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communication and the Arts, 2 April 2024

In 2017 the WIA advised members that “The WIA's Spectrum Strategy Committee is working with the ACMA to determine when access to 60 metres for Australian amateurs will become available”. Given the context of these fresh insights, this statement sounds rather disingenuous.

All Australian amateurs deserve to be disillusioned with the WIA on this matter. It represents an abject failure in their core principles, WIA’s Corporate Ethics Policy, not to mention transparency and honesty with members. It also raises the question of the WIA President’s recent statement that “We all want to find a solution that satisfies all stakeholders and accept that some compromise may be required”. Maybe he simply didn’t know about the 2015 “arrangement”.

Since WRC-15 over 250 countries have been granted access to 5 MHz. But not Australia.

The Australian amateur radio community now has every reason to question the WIA’s approach to all negotiations with ACMA.

Where to next?

RASA met with the ACMA in February this year and again raised this subject. Their position remains steadfast; As long as Defence maintains the position that they do not wish to share access to this 15 KHz segment, the ACMA are unwilling to negotiate. As they are the “impartial” regulator we find this statement to be at odds with their charter. However, direct discussions with the Department of Defence appear to be the only pragmatic option. A part of this process will be education about actual, not perceived, activity in this part of the spectrum.

In 2022 the ACMA wrote in their response to submissions:

“Public and non-public submissions from the Department of Defence showed that expanding the use of the 5351.5 – 5366.5 kHz band to potentially several thousand amateur operators could impact important radiocommunications operations.

The allocation concerned is 15 kHz wide. RASA has proposed a fixed channel arrangement. This means five clearly defined channels, with transmissions limited to 15 Watts. This allocation will simply not support the thousands of simultaneous transmissions that appears to create concern for the Department of Defence

Clearly, there is more work to be done. As a National Representative Body, RASA will continue to pursue this issue on behalf of all Amateurs.

The Radio Amateur Society of Australia
info@vkradioamateurs.org
https://vkradioamateurs.org/

[vk3rx]

I don't know what RASA are on about, blaming the WIA (apart from an opportunity to sink the boot in), when at the time it was made clear Defence would not agree to share the segment.

RASA met with the ACMA in February this year and again raised this subject. Their position remains steadfast; As long as Defence maintains the position that they do not wish to share access to this 15 KHz segment, the ACMA are unwilling to negotiate.

In 2022 the ACMA wrote in their response to submissions “Public and non-public submissions from the Department of Defence showed that expanding the use of the 5351.5 – 5366.5 kHz band to potentially several thousand amateur operators could impact important radiocommunications operations.”

[tanger32au]

I was reading about this earlier today. 60M does not interest me but if this all played out as posted, that is a worry.

[vk3rx]

FYI edition 2/2025 of the Wireless Institute of Australia magazine “Amateur Radio” has an extensive article “5MHz – The Truth” written by Dale Hughes VK1DSH, addressing the accusations etc. made in the news release by RASA:

https://www.wia.org.au/members/armag/20 ... _truth.pdf