Standard class amateurs are allocated only the top 2 MHz (52-54 MHz) of the 6m band. This anomaly serves no real purpose.
Granting Standard class amateurs all of 50-54 MHz would not impact the incentive to upgrade, as the privilege gap to the Advanced Licence is still considerable.
As discussed previously, we launched an on-line survey to seek sector views on this issue.
The survey commenced on 20th December 2019 and closed on 19th January 2020 – it was open for four weeks. It was promoted via RASA email bulletins, email broadcasts to over one hundred and twenty radio clubs, Social Media, News Broadcasts and the popular VKClassified web site.
Results
A total of 415 people responded to the survey. The methodology used for this survey is described in the Annex below.
71% of all respondents support the proposal that Standard class amateurs be granted access to the entire 50-54 MHz band. The detailed survey results are presented below.
We monitored the IP addresses of all respondents and found no evidence of fraudulent conduct or attempts to spam/influence the survey.
The distribution of responses remained relatively constant over the survey period, with only very minor variations. There was no particular spike in responses one way or another.
Detailed responses
Cross-sector support
The WIA also support this proposal, as detailed in their submission to the ACMA LCD review:
“The WIA suggests increasing the number of permitted bands for Standard licensees between 1.8 MHz and 28 MHz and, particularly, access to 50-52 MHz.”
Action
Accordingly, we have written to the ACMA, requesting that the LCD be modified to make the entire 50-54 MHz band available to Standard class amateurs.
The letter to ACMA has been copied to Greg Kelly from the WIA in the interests of transparency and cross sector cooperation.
ANNEX – survey methodology
Survey Monkey provides the following details regarding the survey method.
We utilised statistical theory and on-line calculators to determine our survey size.
http://help.surveymonkey.com/articles/en_US/kb/How-many-respondents-do-I-need
We used the following metrics.
- Population size: 14,000 (probably too large given many amateurs are not active).
- Margin of error: 5% (The range, measured as a percentage, that your population’s responses may deviate from your samples.
- Confidence Level: 95% The probability that your sample accurately reflects the attitude of your population. The industry standard is 95%.
- Recommended sample size: 374
The actual survey size was 415 respondents which satisfies the 95% Confidence Level (374 responses) and 5% margin of error.
The results presented in this paper reflect the opinions of the broad community within the specifications provided above.