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Update on VHF Licence changes


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This was discussed some time ago, but I have now recieved their final decisions :

 

 

Dear Licence Holder,

We are writing to make you aware of some important changes to your radiocommunications licence(s) issued by Ofcom. The changes mean you may now need to take action to make sure your radio equipment complies with a new licence condition to protect the general public from exposure to Electromagnetic fields (EMF).   

We wrote to you in March this year to let you know we were proposing these changes. They apply to virtually all licence holders. We gave licensees until 18 April to submit any representations they wanted to make about the changes. We have listened to licensees’ concerns and made some changes to the new licence condition and guidance document as a result.  

Full details of our Final Decision are published on our website. The Decision means your licence has now been changed to include a requirement to comply with internationally recognised limits on EMF exposure.  

Alongside the Final Decision we have published Guidance on what you should do to ensure compliance. We have also produced a simple EMF compliance flowchart which tells you whether or not you need to take action and, if you do, what action is needed.  

To help further, we will also shortly publish an updated version of our on-line calculator which you can use to work out an appropriate compliance distance for your equipment.  We are also preparing a new simplified version of the full Guidance, plus specific advice for holders of amateur, ship radio and aeronautical licences. We expect to publish these documents on our website by 8 June.  

All documents – plus other relevant information – can be found on a dedicated EMF webpage

Licensees will have the following time periods to make sure they have up-to-date records in place:  

a) Until 18 November 2021 for any equipment which operates on frequencies at or above 110 MHz. 
b) Until 18 May 2022 for any equipment which operates on frequencies above 10 MHz but below 110 MHz.
c) Until 18 November 2022 for any equipment which operates on frequencies at or below 10 MHz.   

To view and download your new terms, conditions and limitations please click the appropriate link below:

Amateur Radio Licence Terms, Conditions and Limitations

Ship Radio and Ship Portable Radio Licence Terms, Conditions and Limitations

Please note: if we make any further changes to licences in future, we may not contact licensees individually. For that reason we urge all licensees to subscribe to email spectrum updates by going to this page on our website.

If you have any questions about this change and what it means for you, further information can be found on the dedicated EMF webpage using the address provided above.

Yours faithfully, 

Ofcom

 

 

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Yeah, just dropped into my inbox too. 

 

Fortunately the RYA says that this is mainly aimed at 4g/5g mobile mast operators, and despite the regulations stating 'family and friends' Ofcom have already stated they are unlikely to be too interested in enforcement when it comes to your Mrs being sat too close to your antenna...

 

I'm now off to paint a 2 foot circle around the rear cockpit rail of my yacht where the radio antenna is with 'No Public Access' written in it so I can comply !!

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12 minutes ago, smiler said:

So I should be ok if I keep wearing my tin foil hat?

Not only a tinfoil hat but mebe a copious amout of tinfoil around one's nether regions...

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I have yet to check the detail in full, but I think there is a stronger focus in the final version on average power. So if you have a 25W set (typical marine fixed set) but only transmit for say 4 minutes an hour then there is no problem. So no chattering away: you're supposed not to do that anyway of course.   

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And  now (today) reissued the letter with active links.

 

 

 

Dear Licence Holder,

We are writing to you again as we became aware that two of the hyperlinks in our previous email did not work. The links to the Final Decision and EMF compliance flowchart have now been corrected. We would like to apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused.

As stated in our previous correspondence, we are writing to make you aware of some important changes to your radiocommunications licence(s) issued by Ofcom. The changes mean you may now need to take action to make sure your radio equipment complies with a new licence condition to protect the general public from exposure to Electromagnetic fields (EMF).

We wrote to you in March this year to let you know we were proposing these changes. They apply to virtually all licence holders. We gave licensees until 18 April to submit any representations they wanted to make about the changes. We have listened to licensees’ concerns and made some changes to the new licence condition and guidance document as a result.  

Full details of our Final Decision are published on our website. The Decision means your licence has now been changed to include a requirement to comply with internationally recognised limits on EMF exposure.  

Alongside the Final Decision we have published Guidance on what you should do to ensure compliance. We have also produced a simple EMF compliance flowchart which tells you whether or not you need to take action and, if you do, what action is needed.  

To help further, we will also shortly publish an updated version of our on-line calculator which you can use to work out an appropriate compliance distance for your equipment.  We are also preparing a new simplified version of the full Guidance, plus specific advice for holders of amateur, ship radio and aeronautical licences. We expect to publish these documents on our website by 8 June.  

All documents – plus other relevant information – can be found on a dedicated EMF webpage

Licensees will have the following time periods to make sure they have up-to-date records in place:  

a) Until 18 November 2021 for any equipment which operates on frequencies at or above 110 MHz. 
b) Until 18 May 2022 for any equipment which operates on frequencies above 10 MHz but below 110 MHz.
c) Until 18 November 2022 for any equipment which operates on frequencies at or below 10 MHz.   

To view and download your new terms, conditions and limitations please click the appropriate link below:

Amateur Radio Licence Terms, Conditions and Limitations

Ship Radio and Ship Portable Radio Licence Terms, Conditions and Limitations

Please note: if we make any further changes to licences in future, we may not contact licensees individually. For that reason we urge all licensees to subscribe to email spectrum updates by going to this page on our website.

If you have any questions about this change and what it means for you, further information can be found on the dedicated EMF webpage using the address provided above.

Yours faithfully, 

Ofcom

 

Simply fill in the excel spreadsheet (calulator)  and keep a copy of the result in your 'ships papers' showing that you don't need to take any action for a hand-held, but for a fixed station (25 watt) you should not transmit with anyone within 1.3 metres of the antenna.

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13 hours ago, Scholar Gypsy said:

I have yet to check the detail in full, but I think there is a stronger focus in the final version on average power. So if you have a 25W set (typical marine fixed set) but only transmit for say 4 minutes an hour then there is no problem. So no chattering away: you're supposed not to do that anyway of course.   

A good explanation why this is not applicable to leisure boaters.

 

 

 

 

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I get the calculation of average percentage of time transmitter is used (though the time period to be used over which the averaging is done is 6 minutes and not 60 as someone assumed) but how do you get a figure for average erp  (as opposed to max)

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so 100% then?

It strikes me that the equipment on boats is standard and there should be a standard accepted figure for distance rather than hundreds and thousnads of us doing exactly the same calculation but using diffreent assumptions - bit like the 60/40 red diesel split

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16 minutes ago, Phoenix_V said:

so 100% then?

It strikes me that the equipment on boats is standard and there should be a standard accepted figure for distance rather than hundreds and thousnads of us doing exactly the same calculation but using diffreent assumptions - bit like the 60/40 red diesel split

 

But if your antenna for your 25 watt set is set up on top of  60 foot mast (as it is on the Cat) then you don't need worry at all.

If it is set up on a NB with a mag-mount aerial 3 foot in front of the hatch / slide (as it was on our NB) then you need to reassess and move it.

 

If you have a handheld, then you don't even need to do the calculation.

 

I used to have a magmount on the car roof, with a 25w radio operating thru a 400w amplifier ( that was 'a bit too close')

IMG_20140428_124250.jpg

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I think that the avg eirp part is aimed more at data comms where even though a transmitter is in use it is only actually transmitting for tiny periods of time (i.e. transmitter active only transmits for 250ms per second) rather than voice comms (ignoring ssb) where if the transmitter is active it transmits for the entire time.

 

I haven't done the calcs yet (as I'm not currently on the air) but I suspect that my home antenna setup needs nothing doing thanks to it being 40 foot in the air and about 30 feet away from the nearest part of the house even with my max power of 100w (legal limit 400w equipment capability 100w)

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15 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

But if your antenna for your 25 watt set is set up on top of  60 foot mast (as it is on the Cat) then you don't need worry at all.

If it is set up on a NB with a mag-mount aerial 3 foot in front of the hatch / slide (as it was on our NB) then you need to reassess and move it.

 

 

 

 

quite right but in both cases the strating point is the calculation and the result should be the same for both

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6 minutes ago, Phoenix_V said:

quite right but in both cases the strating point is the calculation and the result should be the same for both

 

I understand what you are saying and agree, the 'numerical result' will be the same, but the physical actions required for each installation will be different.

 

If the numerical result is to leave a 1.5 metre space between the antenna and a 'body' then no action is needed for my Cat installation, but it is for the NB installation.

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