Towards the end of 2013, Ofcom announced plans to change the amateur radio licence. This resulted in an Ofcom Public Consultation, and much discussion within the amateur radio community. Ofcom has today published the results of the public consultation, and what they propose to change.
Around 2000 replies were received, and here is a summary of what Ofcom is set to change to the amateur radio licence from January 2015:
What’s being changed:
- Make the 470kHz and 5MHz bands available to Full licence holders without the need for an NoV
- Make changes to allow a club to keep its callsign if the licence-holder leaves that club
- Allow a licence to be revoked if the holder has been convicted of an offense under the Wireless Telegraphy Act
- Changes to how often a callsign has to be given
- Allow encryption, if requested by a User Service or when assisting with communications at a time of emergency
- Some other minor wording changes
What’s not being changed:
The most controversial proposed change is now not going ahead. The proposal was proposing making the Regional Secondary Locator reflect the Main Station Address, not the place of operation. Currently, the station M6ABC when in Wales would use MW6ABC – and had the proposal gone through, the “W” would no longer be mandatory. In response to overwhelming feedback, Ofcom will not be making changes, and things stay as they are – a great relief for most amateurs, and well done to Ofcom for supporting the majority view
Use of callsigns
For us, this is the interesting one. Ofcom’s proposal was for the ‘identify every 15 minutes’ rule to be be dropped and replaced with:
“the station be clearly identifiable at all times and that the call sign be transmitted as frequently as is practicable during transmissions.”
Only 330 agreed to relaxing the 15 minute rule, and 1350 disagreed with the proposal. Ofcom’s decided to make the change anyway, and it looks like the 15 minute requirement is set to be removed from January.
As a concession, a note will be added top the guidance notes advising that best practice is “every 15 minutes” when operating voice or Morse code – at least that gives some guidance for those of us involved with training.
The Document and Comments
Ofcom’s statement can be found here: Updating the Amateur Radio Licence – Statement
This contains a list of amateurs who responded and had no objection to their names being published.
Next Steps
Notices will be sent to existing amateurs about the changes in January 2015, with a period of one month for objections. This is followed by a month for Ofcom to review representations, before a final announcement is made on the Ofcom website and the new licence made available.
New licences issues from January 2015 will have the changes built-in.
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RSL – “things stay as they are” but what is the Status Quo ?
When in 2013 a query was made to Ofcom regarding the use of RSL’s Ofcom made it clear that they considered the current licence (2007 issue) meant that you signed your home station callsign regardless of where you were in the UK and Crown Dependencies – clause 2(2) is applicable only to home station operation.
Ofcom did, however, agree to allow amateurs to continue the existing practice of swapping RSL’s. So from October 2013 you could choose if you wanted to change RSL when crossing into different regions. That was the situation existing prior to the consultation.
Ofcom has said they are not making any changes to the licence wording regarding RSL’s this means the situation prevailing prior to the consultation remains – RSL’s are optional.
73 Trevor M5AKA
A post on the VHFandUHF Yahoo Group makes a number of very good points:
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They have retained the EMC threat and a pile of unnecessary baggage in the frequency schedule notes related to 472k/5MHz from Question-1 and unilaterally downgraded 76GHz to secondary without consultation, breaching a prior policy agreement (and it wasnt in WRC-12 either)
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This is a bad licence which should be opposed. The “no interference to electronic equipment” clause is toxic.
Ofcom claim to have no plans to extend that clause further but we all know what is meant when people use the weasel words “no plans”. In April 2010 then Shadow Chancellor George Osborne said he had “no plans” to increase VAT and look what happened.
73 Trevor M5AKA
“This contains a list of the amateurs who responded and had no objection to their names being published.”
Except it doesn’t, it appears that a number of people who correctly submitted responses and didn’t request confidentiality do not appear on the list.
This suggests that Ofcom’s handling of responses is flawed and could call into question the validity of the entire consultation.
73 Trevor M5AKA
The words “15 minute requirement will be removed in January” are misleading – it is only NEW licensees who will have that clause removed from January. For everyone else the licence is unchanged.
As we know for any licence change or revocation Ofcom is required by the 2006 Wireless Telegraphy Act to inform the licence holder in writing on a piece of physical paper. They cannot put something on their website or in an email it has to be a piece of paper delivered to the licence holders postal address.
Furthermore as well as informing the licence holder of the proposed (note proposed) change or revocation they must also provide a procedure for an appeal by the licence holder.
In this case Existing licence holders will have one month from receipt of the written proposal in January to submit their objections. Ofcom will then have one month to give due consideration to the responses. My personal guess is that existing amateurs will not be issued with a formal revised licence until next May.
As noted above Ofcom can issue new licences to new M6’s etc based on the changes in the statement from January 2015 but they cannot change an existing licence without following due process.
73 Trevor M5AKA
so less than 20% wanted the 15 minute rule removed and ofcom said stuff the 80% and removed it anyway.
Says it all about how much they value what we think, why did they even bother to ask if they were going to do it regardless ?
I fail to understand why raynet need encryption of any kind and goes against the spirit of ham radio.
Agreed on the first part… I really expected a rewording of this, as it’s too vague and hard to teach as it’s now written.
Re. the RAYNET encryption, I do know some of the background to this – User services such as First Responders may ask an amateur to pass on a message, but that message may contain personal details which shouldn’t be sent “in the clear” (e.g. patient’s name, medical condition, etc). The request to encrypt a message should come from the User Service Ground Commander, or in times of emergency. This is not a blanket agreement to allow RAYNET to encrypt, but a way to make emergency comms more useful. It also applies to any amateur, not just RAYNET.
It is possible to use codes now thats not encryption. that is a code and could be worded as such.
If as said it’s an emergency and a matter of life or death I would not be interested in if my details were public knowledge or not.
The word encryption is to broad and like the loss of the 15 minute rule will lead to abuse, I wouldn’t be surprised if within 5 years all raynet stuff will be encrypted with the excuse it’s to keep things private in case of someones personnal details being heard on the air.
As I understand it, in theory encryption for a User Service would only be in exceptional circumstances, so unlikely to be a big deal, but you’re right – it’s not clear what form the encryption would take – whether it’s a code that the User Services use, a digital radio mode, or something like an encrypted data protocol.
My understanding is that RAYNET did not even ask for Encryption to be included in the licence.
All they had done was to seek clarification that the transfer of Binary Files supplied by a User Service was covered by the 2007 licence.
73 Trevor M5AKA
The removal of the 15 minute ID requirement from the licence and replacing it with a non-binding suggestion in a separate guidance document will bring about a fundamental change to the nature of UK amateur radio contacts.
It means you are no longer breaching your licence if you fail to give a callsign. The inevitable consequence of this is that, in the long term, we will move to a situation where hearing a callsign used on VHF-UHF FM will become a rarity. The same will be true for the other bands when contacts are made between friends and associates, people will cease using callsigns.
Ofcom’s claim that some very slow esoteric digital modes such as QRSS can’t ID in 15 minutes is a red herring. These modes are used by a tiny number of amateurs, and can be simply handled by use of the NoV system. There is no need to delete the ID requirement from the licence.
73 Trevor M5AKA
The encryption debate is as a result of this being bounced off OFCOM, on behalf of User services. If a US hands an operator a message which is written in whatever code,language, and says – please send it – the operator has not encrypted the message. As long as they identify themselves at start/finish of the message – job done, and licence conditions not broken. It refers to any medium, not just binary files.
For certain events with medical user services, such requests have be made from time to time; I’ve had them.
73 Max
Vice Chair / RSGB Emergency Communications Committee
Well replied, Max. As an amateur, RAYNET member and Disaster Manager since the early 1970s, I’ve seen both sides of the coin. Many times in discussions, US representatives have assumed automatically that amateur communications are secure, as they can now assume their own communications are. When they discover that they normally are not, I’ve often heard it said that that would be sufficient reason to not even consider the use of RAYNET. Those of us who can remember the West Midlands ambulance strike of many years ago know that RAYNET saved the day, but the lack of confidentially caused by the inability to encrypt caused problems which continued for years afterwards.
If your referring to the 1997 strike when raynet provided cars to talk to st johns HQ in Coventry I wasn’t aware ambulances (that were on strike) used anything to encrypt their voices in those days and that anybody can could listen in but I could be wrong it was a long time ago.
I know if I had a heart attack (I would class that as an emergency) I wouldn’t care about my details be given out if it helped me to survive.
I don’t normally refer to the yanks but the fcc refused the right to encryption last year as well to and the arrl backed the fcc.
Raynet is for disaster/emergencys and as such it would be extreme conditions where taking the time to encrypt would be time wasted.
Richard,
I disagree about the encryption issue. Taking the worst possible emergency scenario when the existing (encrypted) Airwave/TETRA systems reach “capacity”, there becomes a need to carry sensitive information. Having the ability to do this creates options not just from a “technical” encryption point-of-view, but also verbal codes that mean very little to the casual observer (ie: beyond a Q or 10 code). Not caring about your details being given on an open channel won’t wash with the emergency services – When it comes to inviting an alternative communications provider (ie: RAYNET) to assist, their 1st question may just be: “can we pass information securely?”.
Sure, you could send compressed data (like AX25 7PLUS/YAPP) but with speech it becomes a bit harder and a case of the licence rules not keeping-up with developments in technology.
We will have to agree to disagree, This is a technical service we are not an emergency service and if things are that desperate then I cannot see anybody turning down help encrypted or not.
It was a requirement for me to pass a morse test to operate on HF because in those days there was still the possibility of a ship in trouble with only morse to communicate their sos so I fully understood the requirement and am glad that it is no longer needed.
You say “a case of the licence rules not keeping-up with developments in technology.” but you don’t want to use existing methods “(like AX25 7PLUS/YAPP)” and wish to use something “(ie: beyond a Q or 10 code)” which I take to infer (I could be wrong on this) that it would be a spoken code what about this is “keeping-up with developments in technology”.
For me it’s the word encryption that I am not keen on, it’s very open ended with no specification to which type of encryption and open to abuse which is why i’m sure the FCC refused it with the backing of the ARRL in the states.
For an open hobby the type of encryption is being kept very hush hush.
The Americans manage more than adequately during the 9/11 disaster/atrocity without encryption.
Just to be clear – I am NOT in favour of Amateurs making “casual” or “general” transmissions that are encrypted in such a way that I could not decode/listen with off-the-shelf equipment. In other words, D-STAR, DV-Voice, PSK, RTTY etc all fair game as far as “modes” go.
What I am in favour of is the ability for encryption to be used when required and only as part of an emergency system. A casual chin-wag on 2m is not the place for it :)
You’re right about the USA (but we’re a decade into the future now) and although systems like Airwave/encryption are not common-place as they are here, I think that its use will increase… and, as a technical hobby – we have a vested interest in keeping-up with technology and providing the means to communicate effectively.
RSGB licence review discussion forum opens Monday, December 8.
Anyone, RSGB member or not, can contribute to the discussion on the forum which is at
http://forums.thersgb.org/index.php
When you register on the site there is a question at the bottom which says:
Verification: Who issues amateur radio licences in the UK?
The answer is Ofcom
73 Trevor M5AKA
The RSGB has now opened a forum to discuss guidance to accompany the licence. Anyone, RSGB member or not, can contribute to the discussion on the forum which is at http://forums.thersgb.org/implementation
73 Trevor M5AKA