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Business Review 1996/1997
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Business Review 1996/1997
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Amateur Radio
The Agency's liaison arrangements with the Radio Society of Great Britain (RSGB) have been reviewed and a number of changes agreed. The Agency is continuing to work with RSGB to improve the dissemination of information from these regular meetings and to continue to develop a more open approach to discussions.
A large amount of time has been spent with the RSGB on reviewing arrangements for mailbox operation and it is hoped that an updated Mailbox Agreement will be issued shortly. Initial work has already started on a similar Agreement for node operation and this will be followed up once the Mailbox Agreement has been finalised. Consideration of related topics such as a proposed relaxation in the current advertising requirements, PSTN inter-connections and PGP are also on-going. The Agency attended three SysOp meetings during the year to hear first-hand the concerns of users and comments from these meetings have been taken into account as part of the general review of packet radio.
Following representations from the RSGB, a number of 50 MHz repeaters have been allowed on-air and the Agency has approved a new facility for voice announcements on repeaters. A number of changes have been made to both the full and the Novice licence, notably the withdrawal of part of the 10 GHz band from 1 April 1997. This was necessary to facilitate the introduction of Radio Fixed Access in the UK. The Agency has continued to balance the need for radio amateurs to have access to the spectrum with the ever-increasing demands of new and existing radio services. An example of this was the introduction last year of a new allocation at 73 kHz. A number of Notices of Variations have been issued permitting use of this frequency and work is underway to establish a harmonised LF allocation within Europe. The intention would be to issue this as a general allocation for Class A Licence Holders and to withdraw the 73 kHz allocation after a suitable parallel running period.
The current contract for distributing Amateur and Citizens' Band Radio Licences, held by Subscription Services Ltd (SSL), appears to be working well and performance targets and quality of service measures have been met over the course of the year. The Agency has attended exhibitions at Leicester, Longleat and Picketts Lock in conjunction with SSL and aims to continue to attend similar events in the future.
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