The Committee on Radio Astronomy Frequencies (CRAF) is a committee of
the European Science Foundation (ESF).
The WARC 1992 allocated the band 1610.6-1613.8 MHz to the Radio Astronomy Service on a primary basis. It also allocated the band 1610-1626.5 MHz to the Mobile-Satellite Service, MSS (Earth-to-space) on a primary basis. MSS (space-to-Earth) got a secondary status in the band 1613.8-1626.5 MHz. Furthermore, footnote 5.372 was added to the band 1610-1626.5 MHz.
The band 1610-1626.5 MHz is used by several MSS operators for the Earth-to-space transmission path. One operator, GLOBALSTAR uses the band 1610 - 1621.35 MHz for Earth-to-space transmissions. In Europe, the GLOBALSTAR Mobile Earth Stations, MESs, comply with the ETSI standard for these devices. Nevertheless, it is noted that even under these conditions GLOBALSTAR MESs will cause harmful interference, especially when the frequency range 1610 - 1614 MHz is used.
Sharing between GLOBALSTAR MESs and radio astronomy stations is only possible when considerable separation distances (even up to about 500 km) are taken into account. These separation distance have been calculated by CRAF in collaboration with GLOBALSTAR.