For convenience, here is a summary of abbreviations. I'll define them again when I first use them.
| CPM | Conference Preparatory Meeting |
| EES | Earth Exploration Service |
| FSS | Fixed Satellite System |
| IAU | International Astronomical Union |
| ICSU | International Council of Scientfic Unions |
| ITU | International Telecommunication Union |
| IUCAF | Inter-Union Commission on Astronomical Frequencies |
| LEO | Low Earth Orbit |
| MSS | Mobile Satellite System |
| RAS | Radio Astronomy Service |
| RR | Radio Regulations |
| SFCG | Space Frequency Coordination Group |
| URSI | Union Radio Scientifique International |
| WRC | World Radiocommunications Conference |
| WG 5A | Space Science Services, |
| WG 5B | Mobile Satellite Systems (MSSs) and Fixed Satellite Systems (FSSs), and |
| WG 5C | Other allocation matters. |
| SWG 5B1 | MSS below 1 GHz |
| SWG 5B2 | MSS in the 1-3 GHz range |
| 5B2-A | MSS generic allocation |
| 5B2-B | 1559-1567 MHz |
| 5B2-C | 1675-1710 MHz |
The method is that of a typical UN conference. There are
simultaneous translations into six languages, so everyone wears
earphones. It is odd to walk through a huge conference hall and
hear only the murmur of some private conversations and the
distant, almost inaudible voice of a speaker. Speakers are
recognized by their affiliation, for example,
"Netherlands now has the floor."
The speaker addresses the Chair:
"Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We wish to draw your attention to
... Thank you, Mr. Chairman."
Chair:
"Thank you, Netherlands."
The chair tries to guide the meeting to a consensus. Every so
often, the chair will attempt to summarize the sense of the
meeting and then ask for comments. Once no one asks to speak, the
matter is considered resolved. If the discussion goes on and on,
the chair creates a subgroup to deal with it and come back with a
consensus, which takes the form of a written report.
Which brings up the matter of paper. We were literally inudated with paper every day. Each delegate has a box about 20 cm high which we checked periodically for new documents. Usually half an hour each morning was spent sorting through the accumulation, discarding what is not of interest, and merging the ones that were with what we were already carrying around. About 3000 sheets were issued per delegate during the conference. Before I got here, SkyBridge gave away wheeled airline carry-on bags which can hold about two stacks 20 cm thick. There were a lot of people wheeling a lot of paper around. I forced myself to stick to what I could carry around, about 10 cm thick.
Once a issue has been largely resolved, it is referred to a Drafting Group which produces a draft that reads, in usual legalese fashion, something like this:
The World Radiocommunication Conference (Geneva 1997), considering, a) ... b) ... ... considering further ... noting in particular ... resolves (or recommends) ... instructs the Secretary-General ...Sometimes some finer points may be left in contention in a draft, to be resolved at a higher level, and those are put in square brackets. The draft goes back to the originating body, sometimes bouncing back and forth if the orginating body cannot resolve the unresolved issues.
Industry works hard to influence the Conference. The week before I got here, there were lavish receptions every night. One of my colleagues said he did not pay for dinner the whole week. Motorola put on a show said to have been managed by a firm from Chicago, that brought in entertainers from England and food from Texas. I've heard cost estimates from $0.25M to $2.5M for that one evening. Companies which have made a very visible presence, by major give-aways or free lunches or fancy receptions include Teledesic, SkyBridge, IRIDIUM, Motorola, and Ellipso. By their presence, these companies contribute substantially towards the WRC budget. It is the opinion of some veteran WRC participants that commercial firms may have formal representation at future WRCS.
It is interesting to compare the representation for the Radio Astronomy Service (RAS) during the week I was there.
Ananthakrishnan (Ooty) India Willem Baan (Arecibo) Chair, IUCAF Jim Cohen (Jodrell Bank) IUCAF Hans Kahlmann (Dwingeloo) Netherlands Tom Gergely (NSF) USA Tom Kuiper (JPL) IUCAF Dave Morris (IRAM) IUCAF Masatoshi Ohishi IUCAF Ken Tapping (Penticton) Canada Paul vanden Bout (NRAO) USA John Whiteoak (ATNF) Australia Anders Winnberg (Onsala) IUCAFThe astronomers on national delegations have the advantage of being able to influence votes. (Note that although explicit votes are not taken, implicitly they are. No document is held up because an observer delegation does not agree.) Also, national administrations can submit proposals. These astronomers have a disadvantage in that they may not be free to speak their minds, being under the discipline of their delegation chief. The most effective are those on small, usually friendly, delegations: Australia, India, Netherlands. The IUCAF delegation can have an independent position. Often, there isn't much to say, since many issues are decided before they come into open discussion. (This, incidentally, is an important lesson learned that I'll return to at the end.) There was a lot of networking between the astronomers. We usually all met for lunch to discuss the day's strategy.
NASA also had an exhibit on Space Science covering spaceborne sensors and telemetry in support of Earth exploration satellites. A brochure summarized the US positions in this area and the rationale.
The RAS will suffer in two ways. The most immediate problem is that the down-links to feeder links are in a band immediately between RAS bands used to study emissions from the OH molecule. The IRIDIUM signals will spill out of their assigned band into the radio bands. The current regulations covering this kind of spectrum pollution are very weak. IRIDIUM and their major stakeholder, Motorola, as well as other satellite communications companies, are working very hard to keep them weak.
The other problem for radio astronomy are the inter-satellite links at frequencies near 60 GHz, where absorption by oxygen in the Earth's atmosphere prevents communications between the surface of the Earth and space. This means that these satellites are not disturbed by communications on the ground. The remote sensing community, which has been doing sounding of the atmosphere from space using some of the oxygen lines, have had to yield some of their spectrum to the needs of the inter-satellite service. There is essentially no hope that radio astronomers can get some of that part of the spectrum assigned for studying oxygen in cosmic radio sources. When NASA builds a space telescope to do that (it will probably be one of the goals of ARISE, the next generation SVLBI telescope), it will need a highly eccentric orbit to get away from these transmitters.
On the first issue, the RAS (and other sensitive services) lost part of the battle before the conference even began. The previous WRC had instructed to Radiocommunication Sector of the ITU (ITU-R) to study and make recommendations for limits on "spurious" emissions, those which a transmitter generates just outside of its assigned band. Due to very heavy participation by industry in Task Group 1/3, the limits which were set are very weak for protecting sensitive services. However, the issue of emissions far from the assigned frequency has not yet been studied. Recommedandation 66 was revised at WRC-97 to recommend that the ITU study this matter "considering", among many other "considerings", that the previous study did not protect radio astronomy. Interested parties need to get involved with Task Group 1/5 to ensure that good standards are defined. The IUCAF position paper on this subject which was distributed at WRC-97 is available at [http://www.naic.edu/iucaf/handoutw.htm] http://www.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de/staff/kruf/iucaf/Documents/doc_440.htm
On the second issue, we went into the drafting group which dealt with realigning the spectrum allocations between 50 and 71 GHz to see if anything could be done at this point. However, the spectrum re-allocation had already been extensively negotiated and there was no hope of getting any national delegation to support significant changes.
This WRC did not deal with deal with any specific radio astronomy issues, though we were all very busy protecting RAS interests. For example, a footnote in the RR which draws attention to frequencies of importance to the RAS needed a minor change to conform to a small change in the corresponding regulation. Somehow, the footnote got included in a list of footnotes to be deleted and the mistake was almost not noticed.
I learned one interesting lesson at the eight meeting of WG 5A. Netherlands had previously proposed a secondary allocation to the Earth Exploration Service (EES) for a synthetic aperture radar (SAR) in the 420-430 MHz band for inventorying rain forests. This was supported by the Space Frequency Coordination Group (SFCG) in their position paper. This is a very crowded part of the spectrum, with the potential for interference being very high. (A secondary service may not interfere with a primary service, but accidents will happen.) The consensus at the Conference Preparatory Meeting (CPM-97) was that WRC-97 would order a study. This was reflected in the proposals or position papers of many delegations, including IUCAF.
Netherlands came to the meeting, which was chaired by Bob Taylor, with a revised proposal which struck me as quite acceptable. ESA also spoke in favor. I could tell from the way he clarified points that Taylor found the revised proposal reasonable. However, most delegations from countries very far from rain forests, mostly in Europe, were vehemently against. The western hemisphere nations were silent. Brazil spoke in favor. I quickly located the IUCAF Chairman and brought him to the meeting to consider whether IUCAF should change its position. When we returned, Taylor had called for a break and we joined a heated discussion around the Netherlands delegation. Listening to the discussion, it became clear to me that the Netherlands proposal had no chance. My impression was that very few if any national delegations had the authority, or at least the courage, to diverge from their previously established position. I learned that the real work of a WRC is done well in advance. The job at the WRC itself is to make sure that your proposals don't get ambushed.
If the DSN anticipates need for bands above 71 GHz, now (immediately right now!) is the time to start developing the proposals to be submitted via NASA and the NTIA to the US State Dept, as well as networking with other agencies and countries to submit compatible proposals via their channels. This needs to be completed by the spring of '99 in time for CPM-99, where many issues effectively are decided because that is when the national delegations tend to finalize their positions. After WRC-99, it will probably be too late to get any significant new mm-wave allocations.
Also, the issue of spectrum pollution (my term for un-wanted emissions) will be probably be decided in TG 1/5 in the next 18 months and enacted at WRC-99. Strong representation at TG 1/5 meetings will be crucial to ensure low RFI levels.
I believe that one strategy is for the compatible services to work together to develop common positions and share personnel to ensure representation at key meetings. For example, radio astronomy, passive remote sensing, and Space Research (deep space to earth) are compatible, could share band allocations and could work jointly on unwanted emission standards.
The feeling among most radio astronomers and other sensitive spectrum users has been that spectrum management is a boring and not very important subject. Those people are in for a rude awakening. Imminent, effective loss of the OH bands by the RAS may serve a good purpose as a wake-up call.