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back to article Ofcom steps up the power for unlicensed broadcasting

UK regulator Ofcom has published a consultation on increasing the limits on broadcasting above 10GHz, claiming that at such high frequencies the range is so small it's not going to bother anyone anyway. Currently the caps on licence-exempt usage only go up to 10.6GHz, and generally increase with the frequency. The new proposal …

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  1. Joshua Murray
    Alert

    Radio Amateurs...

    ... like to play in the >10GHz regions.

    In the UK, we are licensed to use the following:

    10GHz:

    10,000 to 10,500 MHz

    24GHz:

    24,000 to 24,250 MHz

    47GHz:

    47,000 to 47,200 MHz

    76GHz:

    75,500 to 81,000 MHz

    The following bands are also allocated to the amateur service and the amateur satellite service:

    122,250-123,000 MHz

    134,000-136,000 MHz

    136,000-141,000MHz

    142,000-144,000 MHz

    241,000-248,000 MHz

    248,000-250,000 MHz

    I'm not entirely sure what goes on at these lofty heights (my amateur radio use stops at 440MHz at the moment), but I bet it'd be pretty cool to make a contact on 250GHz!

    Cheers

    Josh

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  2. Dave Jones
    Boffin

    What's so difficult about 10GHz?

    I still remember playing with the "3 cm wave" box in Nuffield Physics. Maybe modulating it is the difficult part?

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  3. Paul
    Linux

    Amateur Mars Mission & P3E

    I believe the Amsat-DL P5A Mars mission will be using 10.5GHz. Also the long-delayed P3E satellite definately has an X-Band (10GHz) downlink, and I believe it has an X-Band beacon too.

    Having said that, I have nothing (yet) to receive on 10GHz.

    Regards,

    Paul

    ~~~~~

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  4. Mike Banahan

    True, it's only short range

    As this web page convincingly points out, it's very limiting at these higher frequencies:

    http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2001/08/20/1/?nc=1

    I mean, earth-moon-earth using the moon as a passive reflector - how pathetic! No wonder they stuck to such a low frequency as 24GHz.

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  5. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    ,,,"contact on 250GHz"...

    Yeh, but at those frequencies the range isn't likely to be long enough for your left hand to tell your right hand what it's doing.

    So, perfect for Ofcom then ...

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  6. John Murgatroyd

    Amateur microwave

    Loads goes on, read here: http://www.microwavers.org/

    As for offcom...least said.

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  7. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    OH Fcuk!!!

    My Tin-foil hat don't work at those frequencies...

    time to buy that bunker or move to somewhere where they won't waste money on such crap.

    Hmmm looks like im off to Russia, well... Georgia is buggered up, Ukraine is about to be nuked. I can't even go to the north or south poles, as they are about to melt(if they havnt already, and the yanks have suppressed the data)

    :(

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  8. Acme Fixer
    Gates Horns

    Lightspeed!!

    At these nosebleed high frequencies, it's getting increasingly difficult to tell the difference between millimeter waves and long wave infrared. Anything above a few dozen GHz is getting into the realm where the atmosphere absorbs a lot due to the elements such as water and gas. So what's the point of trying to transmit up there? I dunno...

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  9. Wayland Sothcott

    WISP people like the high end

    Get on a couple of towers and you have a 20km link at 100Mbits if you can afford the gear.

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  10. John Murgatroyd

    Loads going-on, commercially.

    "Wireless transmissions with speeds exceeding 10Gb/s are practical using millimeter-band (30-300GHz) frequencies, which are seldom used commercially and where wide swaths of bandwidth can be readily secured. Within that band, the ‘radio window’ of 70-100GHz is attractive because signals are relatively unaffected by passage through the atmosphere, allowing them to travel several kilometers or more"

    http://www.semiconductor-today.com/news_items/2008/JUNE/FUJITSU_200608.htm

    Loads going-on in amateur radio circles as well, using surplus commercial gear as well as home constructed gear.

    Try this list of amateur 10ghz tv repeaters Paul...

    http://www.superiorsignals.co.uk/superior/hamatv.htm

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  11. Kurt Lundqvist

    Amateur TV

    I did a lot of work about 10 years ago running 10GHz Tv and data, its relatively simple. As for range there are a lot of odd propogation effects that take place so weird results sometimes happen. Its certainly possible to do 300 plus miles on 10 watts or so. These days its even easier to generate higher power signals too.

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