Thursday 11 May at 3pm

J. B. Whiteoak - CSIRO Australia Telescope National Facility

"Better Protection for Radio Astronomy at Millimetre Wavelengths"

ABSTRACT: "During May 2000 the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) will hold a World Radio-communication Conference (WRC-2000) in Istanbul. WRCs are held every few years to revise the ITU Radio Regulations which form the basis of planned international usage of the radio spectrum. The results, the Final Acts, have the status of an international treaty. Many other services sharing the radio spectrum with radio astronomy transmit strong signals which have the potential to interfere with radio astronomy observations. In order to minimise this, radio astronomy has been 'allocated' frequency bands in the Radio Regulations in which to operate free from interference. Unfortunately, the allocated bands provide only limited effectiveness. Virtually all the radio astronomy allocations were made at World Conferences up until 1979, and do not protect the wide frequency ranges that are now needed. There is no protection of frequencies of important interstellar molecular spectral lines detected after 1979, nor of Doppler-shifted frequencies of the spectral lines now being detected in distant objects. At WRC-2000, for the first time since 1979 an agenda item will enable radio astronomy to improve its allocations, even if only in the high frequency range 71 - 275 GHz. About two years ago an ITU working party of radio astronomers began to plan relevant WRC proposals. They developed a set that were used as a basis for worldwide discussions, and similar sets of proposals have now been supported by CITEL countries, CEPT countries, and Asia-Pacific countries. Adoption of the proposals at WRC-2000 will guarantee excellent access to the millimetre-wavelength Universe for the foreseeable future."