With Band 1 now cleared (and VHF low band land mobile as well it would seem) it looks like there is clear spectrum all the way from about 50MHz to the bottom of FM band, i.e. Band 2. That's nearly 40MHz of contiguous spectrum.

Does anyone know what's happening with it? Might be a good way to implement wireless internet to isolated and sparsely-populated areas......

You can bet your life the Government will be selling it to someone and making lot of money.

They would like to get their hands on the Amateur bands if they could, especially the higher frequencys.

66-88 MHz is taken up by 2 way radio spectrum, mostly government agencies.

Ben

We amateurs have 50 to 54 MHz. 50 - 52 on a secondary basis at the moment, Hopefully we get Primary status but not great changes are going to happen in the short term...

We may in the future get the 4m band (70MHz ish) but again not in the short term.

You can bet your life the Government will be selling it to someone and making lot of money

Yep, they just love making money out of "licences". It's like printing money, but cheaper.

The govt will only sell the spectrum if someone can make money out of it.

Until 1995 my business had 2 way radio on 77.36MHz. Mobile phones, the increasing cost of the licence, landline rental (Brookvale to Frenches Forest where the base station was) an office move and aging equipment led to us shutting it down.

But VHF low band was great for distance and we covered most of Sydney from one site.

As well as businesses, taxis, police, fire and ambulance all used low band in those days.

You can tell no-one is using it for mobile radio now because you just don't see the distinctive long antenna that was needed any more.