‘AST tries to get away with handing in only half the homework it was supposed to do,’ says one amateur radio operator who’s pushing back on AST’s request to use the 430–440 MHz band.
aceMobile’s attempt to justify its use of the amateur radio band for its satellites has done little to assuage concerns from the ham radio community.
“AST is again economical with the truth,” an amateur radio operator in Germany named Mario Lorenz wrote to the FCC on Friday.
AST SpaceMobile wants to use the 430 to 440MHz bands outside the US to control and track its constellation of 248 satellites, which promise to beam cellular connectivity to smartphones across the globe. However, these bands have long been allocated to amateur radio operations, raising fears that AST’s operations will create widespread interference.
On Tuesday, Texas-based AST defended using the radio band, telling the FCC that any radio interference should be minimal. It would use the 430 to 440MHz band for « very limited, non-routine » use, such as for “emergency operations when other frequency bands are unavailable. »
However, the amateur radio community says AST is already using those bands. On Friday, AMSAT-Deutschland sent a letter to the FCC that says amateur radio users have detected signals from AST’s satellites over the radio bands.
