NZ ATV TO BE FORCED TO GO DIGITAL
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Digital Amateur Television is coming to New Zealand, but not necessarily 
because the Kiwi ham community wants to make the change. Jim Meachen, 
ZL2BHF, is here with the details:

Hams down here in New Zealand will soon be forced to go digital if they 
wish to continue Amateur Fast Scan Television operations.  This after our 
nations government regulators announce that all analogue modulated TV 
transmissions in the VHF and UHF broadcast bands, which include Channel 39 
used by ham radio, will close down in March 2015, or at some earlier date.  
At that time the upper end of the New Zealand UHF television allocation 
will be cleared of television, so that the vacated spectrum can be used 
for next-generation mobile communications.

One consequence of these decisions is that the existing television 
transmissions will need to convert to digital so as to fit into about 
half of the present spectrum, requiring that their transmission parameters 
need to be more closely defined than at present.  For the Amateur 
Television service this means that each Radio License for analogue 
TV needs to be replaced by a "Spectrum License" for analogue-modulated TV. 
As part of the process, our government telecommunications  regulator has 
cancelled all of the existing Radio Licenses for Channel 39 TV Repeaters. 
Operators of Channel 39 TV Repeaters need to close them down to avoid 
receiving an Infringement Notices from the regulatory agency.

Those wishing to operate their analogue-modulated Channel 39 ATV repeaters  
between now and the 2015 Digital TV Switch-Over, will be required to apply 
for a Spectrum License. However this Spectrum License for analog ATV 
transmitters will only exist until the Analogue shut down date.  Ham Radio 
access to New Zealand Channel 39 which runs from 614 to 622 MHz was made by 
footnote to the nations telecommunications regulations many years ago when 
a chunk of the 432 MHz band was taken from the amateur radio service.

Im Jim Meachen, ZL2BHF, in Auckland

(AR-Newsline)