Friday, December 15, 2006

Resolving problems with non-SAMAA flyers -- Piet Le Roux

The chairman has said a few unfortunate things this year. In the September issue of SAMAA News he used the term “FREE LOADERS” and went on and said they were “breaking the law” and that they will be “dealt with by the SAP”. Maybe if the” SAP” still existed and a law had been published in the government gazette, but the SAPS definitely does not have the time, will or resources. In the November issue he happily reported that the commissioner of Civil Aviation formally delegated his authority over model aircraft operations to SAMAA. I do not whish to debate the pros and cons of this but the fact is we have seen nothing on paper. I do not for a moment believe that in this day and age, with our present constitution, one can even consider to force someone to belong to an organization and pay them money. If we really want to resolve this matter I think a formal apology would be a good start.

Excepting that there will be SAMAA and non-SAMAA flyers would be step two, finding a way that we can co-exist would be the third and final step.

Although SAMAA never formally acknowledged that there can be serious consequences if we were to use the top six channels in conjunction with the bottom six channels of the 35MHz band, on the same field, I see that the top six channels had been left out on the suggested frequency board advertised in the November issue of SAMAA News. If we were to, with the cooperation of ICASA and the Dealer SIG, hand these six channels (105 to 110) over for the exclusive use by park flyers we can solve this problem.

The six channels in question will then be illegal to use at any registered field which will make these fields safer. I can see no problem if they were to be used a few kilometers away from a registered site by park flyers. The criteria for a park flyer craft would have to be established, let’s say anything that weighs les than 1Kg would be classified as a park flyer. If someone whish to buy a park flyer and he or she does not have a valid SAMAA card only the top six channels may be sold with the craft. If any crystals or equipment is sold that uses the lower channels (60 to 104) a valid SAMAA card must be produced. The SAMAA number must be recorded by the dealer to enable ICASA to follow up any complaints if necessary.

Piet Le Roux

#9056

Bloemfontein

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I do not agree with the idea of reserving the top six channels. My reasons:

* They can interfere with the bottom 6 channels which may be in use at a flying field.
* They don't prevent Park Flyers from interfering with each other.
* Crystals on those channels are hard to obtain.
* Synthesized equipment that can tune to those channels does not exist.

Better ideas:

* Get more spectrum from ICASA.
* Form a RC frequency allocation body that oversees what frequencies are sold where and to whom so as to avoid clashes.
* Disallow fixed frequency radios on park flyers. (ie. spread spectrum only)

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