Ofcom Amateur Radio Licence Statement

Ofcom has published a decision to update the terms and conditions of the amateur radio licence - This follows a consultation published in September

These include changes which would provide amateurs with access to some frequency bands previously available only through the variation of individual licences.

The decision is further to changes announced in Ofcom’s April statement on Public Sector Spectrum Release. In that statement, a decision maybe made to remove access for amateur radio operators to certain frequencies in the 2300 MHz and 3400 MHz ranges in order to support the release of these bands by the Ministry of Defence.

This document is likely to be of interest to individuals authorised to use the radio spectrum in the UK for the purposes of amateur radio activities.

Ofcom Statement - http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/consultations/amateur-radio-licence/statement

PDF which includes new sample licence - http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/consultations/amateur-radio-licence/statement/Updating_the_Amateur_Radio_Licence.pdf

New Digital Mode App EXChat

Con Wassilieff ZL2AFP has developed a sentence-mode radio chat system that works like phone texting!

This is a computer program for Amateur Radio transmission and reception using a computer and radio transceiver. The program equips your computer with a one sentence at a time chat-mode for operation on the HF bands. You use it in the same way as you would Skype™ or cell-phone TXTing. This facilitates rapid-fire QSOs and especially makes nets easier.

As usual, sound card techniques are used to generate transmissions using tones at audio frequency, and to receive and decode the incoming signals, also at audio frequency. An SSB transceiver translates these signals to and from the HF Amateur Bands.

The EXChat mode is a development of DominoEX, and is completely compatible with other DominoEX versions. In fact operators without EXChat, but who have another version of DominoEX, can take part in a QSO, if in a slightly clumsy manner. What is different about EXChat is that it operates in Sentence Mode.

Read more about EXChat and download - http://www.qsl.net/zl1bpu/MFSK/EXChat.htm

Licensing of Television White Space Devices - Now Open

New Zealand's Radio Spectrum Management (RSM) has developed rules to allow the use of television white space (TVWS) devices following consultation in 2014. These rules provide an interim licensing regime for the trial of TVWS in New Zealand.

The new rules will be incorporated into the next issue of the Spectrum Licence Certification Rules for Crown Management Rights (PIB 39).

Licensing of TVWS devices is now open. Anyone seeking a licence should contact an Approved Radio Engineer.

View the white space licencing and certification rules - http://rsm.cmail2.com/t/r-l-cittjdl-qbuiqil-jr/

View the list of independent radio engineers and certifiers available for public work - http://rsm.cmail2.com/t/r-l-cittjdl-qbuiqil-jy/