In the ITU‑R Study Groups (July 2023):

ITU‑R WP5A is devel­op­ing an ITU‑R Report M.[AMATEUR.CHARACTERISTICS]

ITU‑R WP5A is devel­op­ing an ITU‑R Rec­om­men­da­tion M.[AS_GUIDANCE]

ITU‑R has pub­lished ITU‑R Report M.2513 devel­oped in WP4C

In Novem­ber 2020 and May 2021 the IARU con­tributed mate­r­i­al to WP5A on the appli­ca­tions and oper­a­tional char­ac­ter­is­tics of the ama­teur and ama­teur satel­lite ser­vices in the 23cm band. This was accept­ed, sup­ple­ment­ed with infor­ma­tion from some reg­u­la­tors and for­mal­ly deliv­ered to WP4C for use in their coex­is­tence stud­ies. The mate­r­i­al pro­vides spe­cif­ic infor­ma­tion rel­e­vant to the ama­teur use of the 23cm band and the rela­tion­ship between the IARU glob­al band plans and the rel­e­vant RNSS sys­tem fre­quen­cies. Now the stud­ies in ITU‑R Report M.2513 have been pub­lished. At the most recent meet­ing of WP4C in June 2023 an IARU con­tri­bu­tion was adopt­ed as a revi­sion to ITU‑R M.2513 (WP4C report here). The most recent meet­ing of ITU‑R WP5A took place in May 2023 (WP5A report here) and con­tin­ued its part of the work with respect to Res­o­lu­tion 744. 

ITU‑R WP5A con­tin­ues to devel­op a draft Rec­om­men­da­tion ITU‑R M.[AS_GUIDANCE] that seeks to pro­vide guid­ance to reg­u­la­tors on how the poten­tial for inter­fer­ence between the ama­teur ser­vices and the RNSS can be min­imised. This is expect­ed to have some impact on how the ama­teur ser­vices can use the band. A sum­ma­ry report from the last WP5A meet­ing is avail­able here.

IARU Con­tri­bu­tion to ITU‑R WP5A — Novem­ber 2020

IARU Con­tri­bu­tion to ITU‑R WP5A — May 2021

IARU Con­tri­bu­tion to ITU‑R WP4C — Sep­tem­ber 2022

IARU Con­tri­bu­tion to ITU‑R WP5A — Novem­ber 2022

IARU Monte Car­lo Inter­fer­ence Study — March 2023

IARU Con­tri­bu­tion to ITU‑R WP5A — May 2023

IARU Con­tri­bu­tion to ITU‑R WP4C — June 2023

IARU Infor­ma­tion Paper 1

IARU Infor­ma­tion Paper 2

A set of slides are avail­able here that sum­marise the ITU‑R M.[AS_GUIDANCE] devel­op­ments in WP5A.

In Region 1 (July 2023):

CEPT Work­ing Group SE, project team SE40 is con­tin­u­ing sim­i­lar coex­is­tence stud­ies although the focus in this case is on the EU/CEPT GALILEO RNSS sys­tems. An ECC Report is being draft­ed con­tain­ing stud­ies sim­i­lar to those being con­tributed to the ITU‑R activ­i­ties. The IARU has pro­vid­ed 10 con­tri­bu­tions based on the same infor­ma­tion con­tributed to ITU‑R WP5A as well as sug­gest­ing a method­ol­o­gy for the coex­is­tence studies.

Most recent­ly the IARU pro­vid­ed a Monte Car­lo sta­tis­ti­cal study to SE40 which has been incor­po­rat­ed into their draft report. This study under­lines the IARU posi­tion that poten­tial wide­spread and per­sis­tent inter­fer­ence to a pop­u­la­tion of RNSS receivers is unlike­ly. This work in SE40 is in effect “hold­ing back” pend­ing the out­come of the ITU‑R process.

This work in ITU‑R is being used to inform the CEPT prepara­to­ry process for WRC23 through the CEPT Con­fer­ence Prepara­to­ry Group (CPG).

At the most recent meet­ing in May 2023 the CPG pro­posed to devel­op a Euro­pean Com­mon Pro­pos­al (ECP) to man­date the ITU‑R Rec­om­men­da­tion ITU‑R M.[AS_GUIDANCE] in the Radio Reg­u­la­tions by ref­er­ence at the WRC. Whilst the IARU has sup­port­ed the devel­op­ment of the guid­ance rec­om­men­da­tion (and con­tin­ues to do so) it does not sup­port the “incor­po­rate by ref­er­ence” action in CEPT.

Fur­ther detailed infor­ma­tion on the lat­est CEPT work can be found through the CEPT web pages.

The IARU has a glob­al WRC-23 AI9.1b “task-group” of vol­un­teers review­ing and track­ing the activ­i­ty across all the regions.

Sep­tem­ber 2022 Review and Con­sid­er­a­tions:

As the WRC-23 approach­es so the stud­ies regard­ing AI9.1b (23cm and RNSS) are work­ing towards con­clu­sions. How­ev­er the IARU is not con­tent that all the oper­a­tional aspects of the ama­teur ser­vice usage of the 1 240- 1 300 MHz band are being prop­er­ly con­sid­ered to devel­op an accept­able com­pro­mise for all con­cerned par­ties. Please read more details here in the paper below. This infor­ma­tion is brought to the atten­tion of all the ama­teur soci­ety VHF (and above) managers.

IARU Per­spec­tive on the AI9.1b Progress — Sep­tem­ber 2022