[UK-CONTEST] set top box

[Colin]

David,

As it appears the debate is continuing on this reflector let me clear up 
the Dayton "jolly".   Normally 3 members of HQ staff attend the Dayton 
Hamvention - the General Manager, the Commercial Manager who is 
responsible for the stand and the associated logistics, plus Sylvia 
Manco who looks after the Amateur Radio department at HQ.   In addition 
the President attends as the show is a useful opportunity to network 
with officials from other National Societies.   In between he also works 
on the stand.

This year because of a death in the family the General Manager was 
unable to attend and I was asked to attend at short notice.   This meant 
there were two paid members of staff and two volunteers, myself and the 
President.   In addition Martin G3ZAY and Dominic M0BLF were present to 
promote IOTA.   This was at no cost to the Society.

A 9 hour stint on an exhibition stand is no "jolly" whether it be a 
commercial or amateur show and at Dayton you need 2 or 3 people on the 
stand at any one time.   Believe me I've been there, done that and got 
some tee shirts to prove it!

More importantly for the Society it is a success both in financial and 
membership terms.   We sold all (bar 6) books so nothing needed to be 
shipped back and we took a record number of new memberships and renewals 
from last year.   Even more importanly we flew the UK flag (albeit 
upside down) and a lot of visitors appreciated that.

Getting back to the crux of the debate I have been a member of the 
Society for 49 years and I know that during that time it has been very 
active liaisng with the various changing administrations whether it was 
the Home Office, Postmaster General, Ministry of Post and 
Telecommunications, Radiocommunications Agency or Ofcom.   The current 
administration is tasked by the Government to gain as much income as 
possible to benefit UK PLC and lets face it the money to fight the Iraq 
war has to come from somewhere!   If the Government is going to ignore 
1.8M signatories to the road charging petition what chance have the 
active UK radio amateurs have?   We have a lot more spectrum than we had 
40 years ago and the HF spectrum is a lot quieter than it used to be.   
Who remembers Radio Cairo on 7050, Radio Iran on 7075 and Radio Peking 
on 7090 etc etc, all at the same time - and you think 40 metres is 
crowded now!

PLT is currently not an issue in the UK, those providers that have tried 
it quickly came to the conclusion that it was not economically viable.   
The RSGB maintains a listening watch though because someone will try and 
reinvent the wheel.   The main concern at the moment is the homeplug 
issue and as a result of approaches by the RSGB, Ofcom have gone back to 
BNetzA the German administration to retest some of these models for CE 
certification.   The problem with Directive 2004/108/EC (a copy of which 
is available from me on request) is that it is largely re-active.   It 
states what should happen but it isn't until complaints about a product 
are logged that anything can be done questioning the validity of the CE 
marking.   It is then that Ofcom are duty bound to investigate and they 
are already doing this with a number of products.   The Amateur Radio 
Service now has the same level of priority as any other user, apart from 
the Safety of Life services.   A Memorandum of Understanding is 
currently being drawn up between the Society and Ofcom as well as Levels 
of Services agreements.

The Society is doing their bit, what p.ss.es me off are the people who 
shoot their mouth off without establishing the true facts.

The EMC Committee by the way has some very proficient engineers and ex 
Ofcom investigating staff on board who are very pro-active with their work.

Incidentally David the free UK 5 year 'licence for life' closely follows 
the free US 10 year 'license for life' which has been in existance for 
quite a few years, and I obtained my US license in one sitting Novice 
through to Extra at a rally in Harrogate about 17 years ago.

73

Colin, G3PSM/AD4UC 



David - M0ZLB wrote:
> What is disgusting is the fact that hardly anything has been done to 
> protect the Amateur Radio Service over the past forty or so years, we 
> now have a regulator which is hell bent on selling off every available 
> piece of spectrum to the highest bidder, we have no decent controls to 
> stop pieces of electronic kit (like baby minders) polluting our spectrum 
> and we have been sold the mother of all dummies with the licence for 
> life concept.
>
> And on top of that we have people who “tut-tut” this and “tut-tut” that 
> who will then wonder why they cant use HF any more because BPL/PLT has 
> killed it off!
>
> Very British “head in the sand” attitude!
>
>
>
>