A project for the HF Band Plan Com­mit­tee that was start­ed at the last con­fer­ence in 2021 was to review the 40m HF band plan and explore what oppor­tu­ni­ties there were to improve har­mon­i­sa­tion of the band plan across all IARU Region 3 mem­ber soci­eties, and poten­tial­ly extend that glob­al­ly through IARU Region 1 and 2 as well. The project has recent­ly been restart­ed, and fol­low­ing a recent con­sul­ta­tion con­duct­ed by the WIA on this top­ic, the IARU R3 HF Band Plan com­mit­tee has been giv­en a size­able vol­ume of mate­r­i­al to use as inputs. Fol­low­ing an exten­sive review, the sub-com­mit­tee is pleased to present the fol­low­ing paper for Region 3 member’s con­sid­er­a­tion at the conference.

You can down­load a copy of the paper here: IARU_R3_19 ADM-03 40m Band Plan Pro­pos­al doc­u­ment for IARU R3 Con­fer­ence — FINAL V1.0

In essence, the paper pre­pared by the IARU R3 HFBPC has under­tak­en to:

• Inves­ti­gate and make a case for why the 40m band plan needs to be reviewed
• Set forth the prin­ci­ples that should be con­sid­ered in design­ing band plans
• Con­sid­ered how to deter­mine the amount of spec­trum each activity/mode should be allocated
• Explain the pro­posed next steps in the process and high­light that any change needs to be achieved through consensus

The paper also presents an exam­ple of how the prin­ci­ples if agreed could work in prac­tice, how­ev­er it also makes it clear that this is by no means final.

Most notably, the final rec­om­men­da­tion of the paper is to encour­age IARU Region 3 to approach Region 1 and 2 with a view to estab­lish­ing a joint tri-par­ti­san work­ing group to take the work further.

Mem­bers of IARU Region 3 ama­teur soci­eties are encour­aged to review the pro­pos­als and pro­vide feed­back to their respec­tive loca­tion IARU Region 3 rep­re­sen­ta­tive society/association. The mem­ber soci­eties can then bring informed posi­tions to the con­fer­ence for fur­ther discussion.

Regards,

IARU Region 3 HF Band Plan Committee