mid-2000s, with the paging companies being purchased by others and services moved to newer systems, or having gone out of business. Canadian reallocation Until January 2006, Canadian amateur radio operators were allowed to operate within the entire 220–225 MHz band. Canadian operations within 120 km of the United States border were required to observe a number of restrictions on antenna height and power levels to coordinate use with non-amateur services in the United States. In 2005, Industry Canada decided to reallocate 220–222 MHz to land mobile users, similar to the US, but unlike in the US, a provision was included to allow the amateur service, in exceptional circumstances, to use the band in disaster relief efforts on a secondary basis. In addition, the band 219–220 MHz was allocated to the amateur service on a secondary basis. Both of these reallocations went into effect January 2006. Band use Canadian band plan Scope of operation in North America Today, the 1.25-meter band is used by many amateurs who have an interest in the VHF spectrum. There are pockets of widespread use across the United States, mainly in New England and western states such as California and Arizona with more sporadic activity elsewhere. The number of repeaters on the 1.25-meter band has grown over the years to approximately 1,500 nationwide as of 2004. The attention that band received in the late 1980s and early 1990s due to the reallocation of its bottom 2 MHz sparked renewed amateur interest. Many amateurs feared that lack of 1.25-meter activity would lead to reallocation of the remaining 3 MHz to other services. Today, new handheld and mobile equipment is being produced by amateur radio manufacturers, and it is estimated that more amateurs have 1.25-meter equipment now than at any point in the past. Auxiliary stations An auxiliary station, most often used for repeater control or link purposes or to remotely control another station, is limited in the United States to operation on frequencies above 144.5 MHz excluding 144.0–144.5 MHz, 145.8–146.0 MHz, 219–220 MHz, 222.00–222.15 MHz, 431–433 MHz, and 435–438 MHz. Operation of such control links in the crowded 2-meter band is problematic and on many frequencies in that band expressly prohibited, leaving 1.25-meter band frequencies as the lowest available for remote control of repeaters and unattended stations. List of transceivers Since the band is allocated mostly in ITU Region 2 (Somalia, in Region 1, being the only