Good news: the new amateur bands were published in the Federal Register.
Bad news: you still can't use them.
ARRL Letter:
The FCC Report and Order (R&O) spelling out operational rules to allow secondary Amateur Radio access to 630 meters and 2,200 meters now has appeared in the Federal Register, but radio amateurs still may not access the new bands. That's because specific procedures specific procedures, now under development, to detail how radio amateurs will notify the Utilities Technology Council (UTC) of their proposed station location prior to commencing operation, still must undergo approval. The FCC said the notification requirement is necessary to confirm that a station is not located within 1 kilometer of an active power line communication (PLC) system.
"While the R&O has been published in the Federal Register, amateurs may not
begin using the new bands until after the FCC's Wireless Telecommunications
Bureau issues a Public Notice
outlining necessary procedures to notify UTC of pending operation, as the new
rules require," ARRL Regulatory Information Manager Dan Henderson, N1ND,
said. "There is no timetable for that Public Notice to be released. Amateurs need to practice
patience."
The FCC said the notification requirements it adopted "seek to strike a
balance between amateur operations used for experimental purposes and PLC
operation used by electric utilities for the reliability and security of
electric service to the public." Once notification procedures are in place, radio
amateurs intending to operate on either band will notify UTC of their
geographical location. If UTC does not object within 30 days, amateur operation
may commence. The FCC turned away an ARRL request for direct access to the
PLC database that UTC maintains.
Once UTC has developed the new information collection procedures, the FCC must submit them for review to the Office
of Management and Budget (OMB). "The Commission will publish a separate
notice in the Federal Register, inviting comment on the new information
collection requirements adopted herein," the FCC said in the R&O. "The requirements will not go into effect
until OMB has approved [the notification procedures] and the Commission has
published a notice announcing the effective date of the information
collection requirements."
In an unrelated action, the FCC allocated
1,900-2,000 kHz to the maritime mobile service (MMS) on a primary basis for
non-Federal use in ITU Regions 2 and 3, and limited the use of this allocation
to radio buoys on the open sea and the Great Lakes. Amateur Radio was
upgraded from secondary to primary in the 1900-2000 kHz segment in 2015.
