BC-DX 789 05 Jan 2007 Private Verwendung der Meldun

Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Colleagues, Distinguished Guests,
It is my privilege now on behalf of all members of the HFCC/ASBU
association who have come to Birmingham to thank Mr Bob Edmiston who is
the Chairman and founder of Christian Vision, and to Mrs Tracie Edmiston a
director of Christian Vision for coming over on this nice bank holiday
morning to our opening ceremony. I would like to thank to Mr Edmiston for
his nice welcome and introduction to the conference. Real old-timers among
us surely remember that the present conference in fact revisits after many
years the UK and even the same region more or less:
One of early conferences, hosted by the BBC then, was held in Evesham -
not very far from here. Participants of that early meeting were also able
to get a glimpse of the beautiful, typically English, and mostly rural
countryside of Cotswolds. Now we are in the West Midlands region again but
this time in the second-largest city of the UK.
The Evesham Conference was held way back before our association was
officially founded and its articles of association written. But even that
piece of writing is almost ten years old and we have concluded that some
revisions are needed. A too restrictive definition of membership was one
of the drawbacks for example. The SB has already drafted an amendment - as
well as a series of other minor corrections. The draft will be submitted
for approval to the Plenary Meeting.
We believe that membership should be opened more to persons or legal
entities involved in the usage of the shortwave spectrum. In addition, the
institute of "Associate Membership" will be created and will be available
to other parties interested in shortwave broadcasting. Both these
arrangements will make it possible that broadcasters like the BBC or RFI
for example and other organisations will be able to become the members of
the HFCC.
As you have read in the Minutes from the last Board Meeting or in the
"what's new_ column of the website, HFCC has successfully carried on in
the debate on the enlargement of shortwave spectrum for broadcasting that
is on the agenda of the World Radiocommunication Conference or WRC07 later
this year. Geoff Spells, "Our Man in the WRC07 world" has just reported
that European administrations have agreed on an ECP (European Common
Proposal) to allocate a total of 350 kHz additional spectrum to shortwave
broadcasting with 50 kHz out of this on a shared basis with the fixed and
mobile services.
What is also important is that the ITU-R Study Group 6 have approved a new
report called "Information relating to the HF broadcasting service" The
report contains an analysis of the joint global operational schedules
prepared by HFCC. A summarised HFCC position has been incorporated into
the final version of the European-CEPT Brief for the world conference.
It is interesting to note that the organisation of World Broadcasting
Unions submitted their position to the same Brief. The WBU comprises the
EBU, ASBU, ABU and other unions around the globe. The technical committee
of this world union relates to the statistical analysis of global
schedules prepared by HFCC and supports the enlargement. The HFCC Steering
Board is now considering preparing yet another information document for
WRC-07 that would support further the need for additional HF broadcasting
spectrum.
Positive as it all may seem it does not mean that the battle for the
enlargement of the spectrum has been won. The CEPT is only one regional
group that supports the enlargement at present. We shall discuss this
further in a specialised meeting that will take up the WRC07 matters as
well as monitoring and spectrum usage.
Another ITU related subject is worth mentioning: this time connected with