Friday fragments - comms news from around the web for 4 April 2014

A round-up of the week's critical communications and public safety radio news for Friday, 4 April 2014.

Pipeline towers in the pipeline. Neighbours are kicking up a bit of a fuss over a proposal by US pipeline operator to install 30-metre-high radio towers along the route of a new pipeline. Constitution Pipeline wants to install 11 of the towers along the pipeline to carry radio voice and data, and send commands to equipment such as valves. Some locals are worried about the potential impact on wildlife and property values.

Taiwan to auction 2600 MHz blocks. Taiwan's regulator is reported to be preparing to release at total of 190 MHZ in three blocks in the 2600 MHz band for LTE use. But four extant WiMAX operators are using 90 MHZ of the band, with their concessions due to expire by early 2015. So it looks like being mid-2015 before the 2600 MHz release goes ahead.

The day the ham bands went silent. With WWII raging in Europe in 1940 and 1941, the US began to prepare for possible involvement. Needing more HF frequencies for the military, amateur radio operators were shifted from 80 metres to 40. Then came the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, and soon after the US was part of the war. All US amateurs were ordered off the air, with the exception of station W1AW, which was tasked with letting stragglers know to stop transmitting. But the following year hams were allowed back on air, and even ended up selling their surplus gear to the government, which was facing a shortage of radio equipment!

Amateurs talk with the government. US amateur radio operators have been engaged in a 12-day exercise with government departments to test their ability to communicate with each other on 5 MHz in times of disaster. The High Frequency Interoperability Exercise 2014 covers all areas across the US and is open to all Automatic Link Establishment-capable federal government and amateur radio stations.

LTE: data up, speeds down. A report from OpenSignal, which provides an app that people can use to monitor mobile phone coverage, shows that LTE coverage in the US has improved for the four biggest carriers, but seemingly at the expense of data transfer speeds.

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