The Ukrainian government has confirmed new rules for its radio amateurs. Since 11th March 2011 Ukrainian amateurs may no longer use the following frequencies: 10100-10150kHz, 14250-14350kHz, 1240-1300MHz, 2300-2450MHz, 5670-5850MHz, 10-10,1 GHz, 10,15-10,5GHZ, 24,05-24,25GHz,76-77,5 GHz , 78-81GHz, 122.25-123.0 GHz, 134-136 GHz, 136-141GHz, 241-248GHz, 248-250GHz. Note the first two - that is all of 30m and half of the phone portion of 20m the Ukrainians can no longer use!
This is very sad for a country whose amateurs are among the most active on the HF bands. What is the point of denying the use of frequencies that will still be used throughout the world including by Ukraine's neighbours? If it is intended to give these frequencies to other services (in defiance of ITU frequency allocations) then these services will find them unusable because of activity from elsewhere.
It is crazy. As my Ukrainian-born wife Olga would agree, surely the Ukrainian government has more important things it could be doing than meddling with amateur frequency allocations?
I'm hoping that this is just an April Fool that has got out of hand. I cannot find any information confirming this other than a few forum posts. Certainly someone in Ukraine kept enough of a sense of humour to make this little video about it in English. Hopefully some comments to this post will provide more details.
8 comments:
I can't believe it... 73 Paul
Julian,
My xyl is Ukrainian, too. She still has a lot of family there so we often worry about what next ludicrous thing the Uke government will do. It is so very corrupt there that real democracy never has a chance.
This latest news about the ham bands, if true, is just incredibly puzzling.
This did come up in 2009 and in fact I wrote about it then under the same headline. People said then it was a mistake. If it was, then it is taking a long time to die.
Anyone who knows anything about Ukrainian politics could not be blamed for believing this is occurring for corrupt reasons.
Julian, I have copied the article to Ham Radio Deals Forum. I hope you don't mind as it is very important I have accredited it to you of course.
Hi Jon.
No problem. If you get any useful info from comments there perhaps you wouldn't mind posting them here as well.
I've just read via the Southgate site that this is a mistake http://dx-world.net/2011/new-rules-for-radio-amateurs-in-ukraine/
Let's hope it's a case of 'cock-up' rather than conspiracy!
History of mistakes for your attention
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