Mike, that’s rather what I thought, too. So, I stand by my original position -
it was always legal, so long as you (licensee) were managing the station.
We do seem to have a culture of wanting to 'have permission’ for things, rather
than just getting on with what’s sensible.
The danger with continuously asking permission for things is quite risky, since:
1. it implies that you think you don’t have it and thus
2. it (permission) can, therefore, be denied by someone ‘in authority’
The licence always permitted other licensed amateurs to use your station, so no
change there. It doesn’t say where they need to be standing when they use it,
but it does say that usage must be supervised by the licensee!
73 Mark
On 16 Aug 2015, at 16:22, MG Blueyonder <mike.granatt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
The entire permit requirement has been a figment of someone's imagination for
years. I worked alongside the Home Office Radio Regulatory department in the
early 80s. When it was invented, the letter of authority that led to the so
called permits did nothing to modify what have always been the individual
amateur's responsibilities: licence compliant operation, including
non-availability to amateurs generally (unless you have an NoV), and the
ability to switch the thing off quickly.
The law/licence is very clear. If you set up the transmitter, every
transmission is your responsibility under your licence, and the transmissions
must be identified regularly with your call sign, no matter who triggers the
transmission. That's why Raynet net controllers regularly identify
themselves, and why general repeaters have to send an ident regularly.
The permit tosh came about because various people involved in em comms wanted
to look "official" and claim control; and emergency planning as well as radio
regulation both lay with the HO, who wanted to be helpful. To cut a long
story short, the updated licence removed the ambiguity of the old BR68, and
clearly restated the principles - particularly the need to ensure that your
talk-through is securely controlled under 10(3) and 10(4).
To put it another way, unless you are monitoring continuously, you MUST use
CTCSS or DCS or similar access control. Leaving the talk through vulnerable
to unfettered use would be a breach of your licence.
73 Mike M0RYK/F4VRD
On 16 Aug 2015, at 11:42, Mark Kent <mark.antony.kent@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
We used a talk-through arrangement a couple of weeks back for the club 2m
Monday net. There was some discussion about it’s position with respect to
the licence.
http://rsgb.org/main/operating/emergency-communications/talk-through-units-guidelines-for-use/
"Ofcom have declared that Talk-Through is now permitted without the need for
a permit to be issued and without the need for the unit to be staffed.” [1]
There is more information at the URL, but the station must be ‘supervised’
by the licensee, but not necessary ‘staffed’
Cross-band operation is explicitly permitted.
The RSGB have requested usage reports and clearly expect this to be used by
Raynet, but this doesn’t seem to be an Ofcom requirement.
The band plan recommendation is to use the emergency comms channels, but
again, this is not a licence requirement.
I’m happy to move the talk-through to 430.800 with a suitable CTCSS if there
is interest in setting up the trunk again.
I did use the talk-through this morning for the Darenth Valley net and
someone was clearly trying to deliberately interfere on 70 cms, so I’ll go
with CTCSS in the future. Aren’t people lovely?
Note 1: I’m not aware that it was ever not permitted, but the position is
now explicit rather than implicit.
73 Mark G8PHM
