In the US with the new federal administration, Elon Musk’s DOGE has been ripping through agencies, finding waste and fraud everywhere, firing workers, and saving Americans trillions of dollars. Everyone has been cheering on Musk and his gallant efforts with DOGE, however a lot of patriotic radio amateurs have been asking just what we can do to help this effort.
There are currently three known DOGE employees embedded in the FCC, however we’ve heard little about their activities. Chairman Carr, a well known Project 2025 contributor and Trump ally has had his hands busy launching investigations into liberal broadcast networks and the hiring practices of telecom companies, expanding the FCC’s mission into ideology enforcement, state-run media, and labor. While Carr launched the Delete, Delete, Delete initiative, it’s unlikely DOGE employees have had time to look closely at amateur radio.
The first and natural area to look at is spectrum as it’s a valuable resource. In the most recent FCC spectrum auction, Auction 110, the average price paid was $0.7156 per MHz-pop. If we apply this figure to the 6m, 2m, 1.25m, and 70 cm bands, a total of 41 MHz, that is spectrum worth $9.7B. There are about 743K radio amateurs in the US. I’d estimate 25% of them are active, and of the active hams, I’d guesstimate half use one or more of the four bands above. That’s about 93K hams using $9.7B of spectrum, or about $104K of spectrum per ham. Though many hams will scoff at this, amateur radio resembles a form of socialism, with a small subset of citizens receiving a benefit, essentially for free. While it’s not fraud, I’d definitely call this spectrum allocation inefficient and wasteful, and this spectrum should be returned back to the government and auctioned off as soon as possible, and the proceeds be given to the people in the promised DOGE savings refund checks.
Some amateurs will argue that these bands are needed for emcomm, which provides a valuable service to the public, and justifies the allocation of these bands to amateur radio. This is an outdated view of amateur radio and technology. Today one can fire up a Starlink unit (another truly innovative Elon Musk creation), connect it to a Wi-Fi access point, and have instant global communications in mere minutes. Additionally, no license is required, and users of the Starlink-powered emergency communications systems don’t need specialized equipment or training.
In conclusion, I would encourage all patriotic and freedom-loving radio amateurs to urge the FCC and DOGE to take back these valuable VHF and UHF bands, and liberate them….. for ALL American citizens.
Radio Artisan 