[LINK] Analogue TV frequencies not just used for TV, so spanner in works of spectrum sale

[Adam Todd]

At 09:35 AM 22/01/2007, Stewart Fist wrote:


>We supposedly use the international spectrum allocation for television
>transmission, yet Australia has never used Channels 12 to 27 in the UHF
>band.
>
>Yet this is the best part of the UHF band for distance broadcasting (more
>important in Australia than elsewhere) -- and it exists as an enormous
>spectrum gap from 222MHz up to 526MHz.  This was the obvious region to open
>up for digital TV, and this could have been done without needing to destroy
>analog channels until they are totally obsolete.

Nope.  Not really.  You have Amateur Radio, UHF CB from 476Mhz to 477Mhz, 
you have pagers, you have hospital systems, you have private licence radio 
links, the list is quite long.

There's also a stack of Broadcast radio in that region.  I think it's 
mostly narrowcast and the content is generally foreign.  Probably lost of 
Arabic material in there :)

>I've never managed to get an answer (that I trust) as to why these channels
>were left vacant,

Check at the ACMA web site in the Radio Licence database and enter the 
relevant frequencies.  You're going to get a lot of data!

>I've been asking these questions at spectrum conferences for years, but
>never had a convincing reply.

Maybe because people are only interested in certain frequencies for certain 
uses and at spectrum conferences they are only interested in new developing 
ranges, rather than older over crowded and privately licensed ranges?