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AMSAT Vice President of Engineering Jerry Buxton, N0JY, has
announced that the Fox 1A CubeSat will launch on October 8 from
California. It initially had been set to launch in August.  Fox 1A
will include an FM transponder with an uplink frequency of 435.180
MHz, and a downlink frequency of 145.980 MHz.  The first phase of
the Fox series 1 Unit CubeSats will allow simple ground stations
using hand held transceivers and simple dual band antennas to make
contacts. The Fox 1 CubeSats also will be able to transmit
continuous telemetry during normal transponder operation.  The
satellites will feature 200 bps telemetry in the audio spectrum
below 300 Hz.  With the deadline to submit proposals to World
Radiocommunication Conference 2015 now less than 2 months away, its
still unclear how at least one agenda item of importance to the
Amateur Radio community will fare.  That is agenda item 1.4, which
calls on the delegates to consider a secondary Amateur Radio
allocation at 5 MHz, 60 meters. In the US and in most other
countries that have privileges there, ham radio has a set of fixed
channels at 5 MHz, not necessarily the same from one country to the
next, although most are common.  As ARRL Chief Technology Officer
Brennan Price, N4QX, explained last spring following the second
Conference Preparatory Meeting, CPM, the agenda item 1.4 proposals
at the CPM were all over the map, ranging from no change to an
expansive allocation of 5275 5450 kHz, with explicit suggestions of
15 kHz and 100 kHz in between, and a few methods with details to be
filled in later. As Price summarized at the time, There is a wide
divergence of opinion, and no certainty as to the outcome.  In his
July 2015 report to International Amateur Radio Union Region 3
Conference to be held this October in Indonesia, ARRL CEO David
Sumner, K1ZZ, said that while the US is generally supportive of the
Amateur Radio and Amateur Satellite services at WRCs and in other
International Telecommunication Union venues, it has been difficult
to gain support from the federal government side for agenda item
1.4. The ARRL is a member of IARU Region 3 to represent the
interests of FCC licensed radio amateurs residing in Guam, the
Northern Marianas, American Samoa, Baker, Howland, Jarvis, and Wake
islands, Palmyra Atoll, and Kingman Reef.  When he submitted the
report to IARU R3 in July, Sumner had said that the best ARRL could
hope for in the US position was a 25 kHz secondary allocation at 5
MHz, and only then if this becomes the CITEL Inter American
Proposal, or IAP, he explained. CITEL completed its work earlier
this month and will put forward an IAP for a 175 kHz secondary
allocation at 5275 to 5450 kHz, with support by up to a dozen
countries. Thats not a proposal the US or Canada could support,
however. Sumner noted that as of now, only one formal proposal for
agenda item 1.4 has been submitted, and it calls for no change at
5250 to 5450 kHz.  It came from the Regional Commonwealth in the
Field of Communications, RCC, the regional telecommunications
organization made up primarily of the former Commonwealth of
Independent States countries of which Russia is the largest.  In
Europe, Hungarys telecommunications regulator NMHH has begun issuing
temporary permits to radio amateurs there to operate in the band
5350 to 5450 MHz on a secondary basis for research. The permits are
valid for 3 months, and holders may reapply after that.  According
to the Dutch Amateur Radio Association, telecommunication regulator
Agentschap Telecom is expected in September to release 5350 to 5450
kHz to radio amateurs on a secondary basis for all operating modes.

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