Good News from the ARRL

I swung through Sunnyvale today on the way down to Santa Cruz to visit my sister for the weekend, and was going through all of my mail in Sunnyvale, and one of the letters was from the ARRL.  For those that don't know, the ARRL is the lobbyist group for amateur radio operators.

 Two pieces of good news:

• As of March 29, 2009, the high-powered shortwave broadcasters sitting in the middle of the 40 meter band at 7100-7200kHz will finally be forced to move.  This will greatly increase the bandwidth available on this unique band available to hams internationally.
• As of January 1, 2009, internationally, amateurs will have access to a new band, which is exciting because it is a Low Frequency (LF) band.  The FCC has yet to approve it for use in the US, but once they do, we'll have privileges on 135.7-137.8 kHz.  That is really low.  That is like 2km low.  It'll be interesting to see what amateurs do with this.  Note though, that this band is only 2 kHz wide, which means that voice is out of the question.
  

Being a poor college student prevents me from donating to the "SPECTRUM DEFENCE FUND - We Must be Vigilant!" fund (do that sound at all right wing to you?), but I do appreciate what the ARRL is doing for me.