scanSydney

source:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-03/a ... al/8235502

The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has reversed its decision to make 40 channel UHF radios illegal from June 2017.

It is estimated there are thousands of UHF, or citizens band (CB) radios on farms and in trucks, caravans and businesses throughout Australia.

Upgrading to 80 channel radios was going to cost some businesses tens of thousands of dollars.

The manager of spectrum licencing policy at ACMA, Dominic Byrne, said the two systems are working well alongside each other so the authority had decided to remove the requirement to upgrade to 80 channel UHF sets.

"These changes were introduced to manage congestion and interference in the CB radio channels," he said.

"Based on both some dialogue we've had with CB users and some monitoring of the CB channels we've been doing ... we don't think that there's any harm from the continued operation of the 40 channel units."

Truck drivers around the country were taken by surprise by the original decision to make the 40 channel radios illegal, according to Rod Hannifey from Dubbo in NSW.

He said neither truckies nor farmers were aware of the need for the change, and the decision would have affected many who use UHF to keep in touch on the road and around their properties, often using multiple radios.

"There is one in the house, one in the farm shed, there's one on each tractor so they can talk to those people. There's one in each of the utes that operate on the property, there is one in each of the trucks," Mr Hannifey said.

I never even knew there was going to be a ban!

I really don't see the point myself, the older 40 channel sets aren't using any frequencies that need to be vacated so why bother?

If anything, I'd just make it so all new radios sold must be 80 channel and let the old radios get phased-out over time, although many will continue to be used (like in that farm example) for decades to come yet, I mean I still have some old 27MHz SSB CB equipment that would be over 40 years old and it's still working great (not that I ever really use it these days).

If people want (or need) to use the upper 40 UHF channels then they'll buy a new radio, but it's not worth the effort of banning older units, how would they even police it? Would you form new squads of inspectors and spend all kinds of money equipping them with RDF gear just to issue a few fines?

Actually don't answer that, it sounds exactly like government thinking!

Andrew

Bigfella237 wrote:how would they even police it? Would you form new squads of inspectors and spend all kinds of money equipping them with RDF gear just to issue a few fines?

Actually don't answer that, it sounds exactly like government thinking!

Andrew

Don't give them any ideas now..

I think the perception was that the 25khz wideband 40 channel transmissions would interfere on the 12.5hz narrowband on channels 41 and above