The IARUMS Region 1 Newsletter May 2021 is now available.
Click on the link to read it!

IARU volunteers have been participating in the CEPT FM and SE Working Groups looking after the amateur and amateur satellite service interests. CEPT WG-SE #88 took place during April and WG-FM #99 took place at the end of May.

WG-FM’s project teams tackle a wide range of civil spectrum applications and are developing important regulatory deliverables relating to wireless power transfer and the 23cm band RNSS coexistence topic amongst other things. Work on both these topics is ongoing. 

The CEPT Radio Amateur Forum Group (RAFG) is hosted by WG-FM and is chaired by the IARU for the time being. Its main task is maintenance of the CEPT Recommendations TR61-01 and TR61-02. A proposal to merge the activities of the RAFG into project team FM58 (Maritime) has been made but the final decision has been held over until the next WG-FM meeting. The RAFG was tasked at this meeting with a new work item to consider the feasibility of developing an electronic database of CEPT wide amateur licensing documentation. This was supported by six administrations.

In WG-SE technical spectrum sharing studies are taking place covering;

• Wireless power transfer including consideration of electric vehicle charging (WPT- EV).
• UWB radiodetermination in 116 – 250 GHz.
• Vehicular radar systems in 77 – 81 GHz.
• Security Scanners in the range 60 — 90 GHz.
• 23cm band RNSS coexistence (related to the WRC item and reported in detail elsewhere).

Amateur service frequency bands are within the scope of all these studies and fall under the remit of the IARU R1 SRLC.

A summary report of the WG-SE meeting is here and the WG-FM meeting is here.

IARU represented the amateur service at this meeting, held virtually, with some 350 delegates registered for the sequence of WP1 meetings. WP1A Working Group WG1A2 was of most relevance to IARU, covering WPT. Documents under consideration in that group included:

• SM.2303: [Preliminary Draft Revision] Wireless power transmission using technologies other than radio frequency beam
• SM.2449: [Working Document towards a Preliminary Draft Revision] Technical characteristics and impact analyses of non-beam inductive wireless power transmission for mobile and portable devices on radio communication services
• SM.2451: [Working Document towards a Preliminary Draft Revision] Assessment of impact of wireless power transmission for electric vehicle charging on radiocommunication services
• Working document towards Recommendation or Report on WPT emissions
• SM.2392 [Preliminary] draft revision Applications of wireless power transmission via radio frequency beam
• [Preliminary] draft new Recommendation — Guidance on frequency ranges for operation of wireless power transmission via radio frequency beam systems for mobile/portable devices and sensor networks
• [Preliminary] draft new Report — Impact studies and human hazard issues for wireless power transmission via radio frequency beam
• together with associated work plans.

The work for IARU was mainly focused on papers SM 2303, 2449 and 2451. IARU input focused on proposing amendments to material submitted by other delegations and proposing a new Annex which documents measurements of typical amateur signal levels and comparing these to test data from the USA on non-beam WPT emission levels and to suggested limits.

Most of the discussions on the detail were resolved with a degree of compromise, and the latest drafts will be attached to the Chairman’s Report for the meeting

Outstanding technical issues remaining include:

• whether E‑field antennas are as susceptible to WPT-EV emissions as H‑field antennas
• what the true noise levels are in residential areas, with WPT developers claiming that WPT emissions will not be significantly above the (now elevated) noise level.

In terms of the E‑field sensitivity to WPT emissions, the proposed work plan submitted by IARU to the European Commission, for WPT-EV tests in the Joint Research Centre, included proper both E- and H‑field measurements.

IARU member society DARC has made good progress with the roll-out of its ENAMS automated noise measurement system and IARU is now able to draw heavily on that data

The WPT-Emissions document has been under discussion for some time. Here there is no agreement yet on whether this should be a Report or a Recommendation and the work has been carried forward to the next meeting in November 2021.

Discussion on “beam” WPT covered a range of issues, including amendments to the proposed frequencies (none are below 800 MHz). Sadly, many proposed frequencies fall in spectrum which the amateur service shares with other services. However, given the nature of the technology and the directivity of amateur antennas in these frequency ranges, the prospect of coexistence seems quite good.

Some concerns were expressed about the rate of progress on some Reports and Recommendations, with the point being made that industry is bringing products to market already. This was followed by a proposal from the floor to continue drafting groups between now and the next meeting. There were objections to this proposal and so the next discussions will be at the November 2021 meeting, at whcih IARU will make a further substantial input.

IARU continued engagement in the ITU‑R WRC-23 preparations in the CEPT RTO during May 2021 at the third meeting of the Conference Preparatory Group (CPG). The CPG is the parent group in CEPT that oversees the development of the CEPT Briefs for each of the WRC agenda items and reviews the progress in the individual project teams under the CPG umbrella. IARU provided a contribution putting forward the agreed preliminary IARU positions for these agenda items. IARU’s overall objective is to safeguard the allocations to the Amateur and Amateur-Satellite services in the co and adjacent frequency bands within the scope of each agenda item. The CEPT briefs have a specific section in which the views of all the recognised international and regional organisations can be placed and the IARU views are now in this section of the draft briefs for each of the agenda items of interest.

CPG Project Team	WRC-23 Agenda Items	IARU Interests
PTA	1.12, 1.13, 1.14, 2, 4, 9.1 a), 9.1 c) ‚9.1 d) and 10.	1.12, 1.14 and 9.1 a)
PTB	1.15, 1.16, 1.17, 1.18, 1.19 and 7.	1.18
PTC	1.1, 1.6, 1.7, 1.8, 1.9, 1.10, 1.11 and 9.1 b).	9.1 b)
PTD	1.5.	-
PT1	1.2, 1.3 and 1.4.	1.2

The meeting also heard presentations from other Region 1 RTO’s as well as organisations from R2 and R3 about their own regional preparations. These presentations and the draft CEPT Briefs for each of the agenda items can be found here.

The IARU SRLC continues to be active in all the CEPT project teams dealing with the WRC preparation.

The SRLC Report on the CPG meeting is available here.