I disagree with most of Ofcom’s proposals, but the one I strongly disagree with is making by RSLs optional. Each UK country is its own DXCC and therefore RSLs are important to recognise which UK DXCC you are working. For many years, a UK callsign without an RSL has always been the England DXCC. If we make RSLs optional, how are we meant to recognise which UK DXCC you are working? Also if the RSL of E was going to be assigned the England, this should be made mandatory like all other RSLs. I really hope the majority are against the proposal of making RSLs optional. I wonder what peoples views on here are of this.
You are looking at this from an English perspective. You don’t really understand how much the Scottish, Welsh, Irish despise being thought of as English and not their own national identity. They may be British but I can’t think of anyone I know in Scotland that considers themself as British before Scottish. They all consider themselves as Scottish then British. This includes people who strongly support remaining in the Union and have no time for Independence. I can guarantee that they will do EVERYTHING in their remit to assert their national identity. Put simply, the RSL may become voluntary but it will remain in use with most outside of England.
We already have this problem with the various special RSLs. How do I know, when working MR0???, which DXCC they’re in? I can’t tell from the callsign, because the R was available to everyone, yet somehow those special RSLs are OK. I don’t see optional RSLs as any more of a problem than that.
Convert it from your other Full licence into a Club licence (The Northamptonshire VHF Activating Club.) You need two other people to be named on the club licence application. After that it’s “my name is Robert, I’m your father’s brother.” Sure anyone in your club can use it with the licence holder’s permission and that’s you.
You won’t be able to, its just clarified what FuLl licence holders can do about greetings messages, and saying that they can now a non-licence holder to operate the station supervised by a Full licence
The Radio Equipment may be used by the Licencee or by any person who has the permission of the licencee to do so and who is under the direct supervision of the Licencee.
There’s no further qualification there, so the Licencee can be at any level, not just Full.
What I saw yesterday was about non-licence holders using a radio unsupervised, at present they can only send a greetings message which means they can’t make contact or use callsigns, the new proposals removed that and it definitely only mentions Full Licence holders supervising, it’s a big document so I can’t find where I saw it but I will get back to with it
Well that has made my 8-year-old daughter’s day, instead of just dragging her up a hill she will love getting on the air, she normally has to wait till JOTA in the autumn to get on the radio (she’s a Brownie)
Sorry bud, you are wrong read the proposal, as long as you are within the conditions of YOUR licence (foundation/intermediate ETC ) and in direct supervision of the operator, any licence level can supervise! if im honest, its always been a silly rule allowing only full licencees to be able to supervise another operator!
Yea, i did wonder if it was a case of too dificulitis… thing is, UK intermediate meets the standard, so i don’t get WHY it has to be so difficult! surely that is the whole point of CEPT, to make it easier!
Anyway, ill look forward to my lad being able to have a go, and being able to use 100W with my new M8 callsign…
Hi John,
I presume that should read transcievers - as others have said, there are a few 20W rigs on the market the Xiegu G90 is probably one of the best known but also the KX3 runs 15 watts - so both have to be turned down to 10w to be operated by Foundation class licencees at the moment.
When out portable, the difference between 5 watts and 20 watts does appear (in my experience) to make a difference in being heard. A further jump from 20-50w or 50-100w makes less of an improvement (and of course drains the battery quicker). So 20w seems to be the “sweet spot” from my experience and to give all UK amateurs the option of going to this level I see as a benefit.
What I had hoped to see in these changes was an aim to make the Intermediate and Foundation licences compatible with the CEPT Novice and Entry-level HAREC specifications in a similar way to the full licence and the signature from Ofcom to the appropriate CEPT agreements. This would then enable operation by Intermediate licensees in other countries who have also signed up to ECC REC(05)06 and operation by Foundation class licence holders with other countries who have signed up to CEPT ECCrep89 (this last one is not fully implemented, but could be given support from enough countries).
Having licence qualification requirements similar across countries means that materials can be shared and movement from one country to another (whether for a short or longer time) made simpler for both the amateur radio operator and the national regulators and is (IMHO) long overdue, so I was disappointed to see nothing included in this direction by Ofcom in this latest proposal document.
100% this… the UK intermediate already meets the standard, and other than an unwillingness by Ofcom/RSGB I see no reason why it cant be done, and now would be the perfect time to do so as part of the wider changes!
I’m pretty sure it’s Ofcom stalling this. As Ed @DD5LP noted, the UK would have to sign up to the appropriate CEPT agreements. They’d also have to come up with a way for visiting amateurs using a CEPT Novice licence to indicate that in their callsign when operating in the UK.
For example, in Germany, holders of a licence compatible with CEPT T/R-61-01 put “DL/” before their home call, and holders of a licence compatible with CEPT ECC/REC/(05)06 put “DO/”.
It wouldn’t be quite so simple for the UK as we already have the RSL complication taking up an extra character, and given that they’re planning to move Intermediate away from 2* calls, that removes the obvious solution for Novices to use “2*/”…
Ofcom have also, in the past, indicated that they like people to progress up the licence heirarchy. I suspect at least a part of their motivation for not signing up to CEPT ECC/REC/(05)06 is because that means only Full licencees can operate overseas, and that gives folk a clear incentive to upgrade. It was certainly the main incentive for me.
Yes, the incentive argument is a strong one - it certainly worked a treat on @M3EYP who is now better known as @M0HGY.
As for the proposals:
I dislike the optional RSL proposal hugely. I am heartened by @MM0FMF’s observation that even the most loyalist/unionist/monarchist Scottish/Irish/Welsh amateurs will not want to be mistaken for possibly/probably English!
Power levels - meh. People use what they want anyway. Big stations use 1kW in contests and while chasing DX (and some already have a licence to do that, some don’t!). I would be surprised if all 2E0 stations with 857s always restricted themselves to 50 watts! I can use 400 watts, but 95% of the time choose to use 5 watts.
The supervision one I read and couldn’t see what the difference was to the current status quo. Some people think that all unlicensed ops can do is send a greetings message from a club station, but that changed over two decades ago! I’ll re-read it to see what it implies Foundation or Intermediate stations can now do. The wording here has been ambiguous for several years. We have a good “safety belt” against various “interpretations” already in SOTA rules, in that activators/chasers must be operating under their own supervision.
I rather like the proposal. I think it is the best compromise we could hope for.
Ofcom clearly believe in the principle that they should not impose regulations that are not necessary, and in the abstract that is hard to argue with. The UK operates as a single administration and there is no regulatory requirement to identify which of the constituent countries a station is transmitting from. DXCC is an ARRL award and there is no reason for the UK authorities to have any regard for it whatsoever.
Ofcom tried once before to get rid of RSLs but made a bit of a mess of it.The proposal on the table now is simple and straightforward, and removes the anomaly of England being different. I hope they make it clear in the final text that if an RSL is used, it must be the correct one - I don’t think they actually say that in the proposal (maybe they think it is obvious).
The neat feature of the proposal is that it allows Ofcom to clear their corporate conscience of over-regulation whilst at the same time ensuring that nobody has to change what they currently do.
If this change does happen, I would expect most operators to carry on as they are. I dare say that a few who live near a border will breathe a sigh of relief and drop the RSL when operating mobile. It will be interesting to see what newcomers do.
Condition 6 Clause 21 of the proposed Amateur Radio General Licence Conditions Booklet does make it clear that, where used, you must use the correct RSL. Unfortunately they have missed out Wales from the list!
