Thought I'd put together a little bit on licencing, for those who dont know.
Ofcom is the regulator in the UK -
www.ofcom.org.uk If you are using radio comms, in the uk, then you need a licence. (with the exception of pmr446). It is ILLEGAL to use a radio without a licence. The penalty is a fine (up to £5000) or prison (up to 2 years), or both !).
If you are unlicenced, you are also making others lives more difficult - If you've purchased some radios off ebay, and leave them on their current frequency, how do you know you aren't interfering with the local hospital's radio system ? (and I'm talking about a hospital that used uhf radios for the crash team, who were being interfered with by ebay purchased radios...)
For the 'business user' there are a few types of licence:
SIMPLE UK LICENCE - this is what was called 'uk general'. gives you access to a set number of frequencies (3 uhf ones, some vhf ones, and a couple lowband ones). Costs £75 for 5 years. You can choose what frequency you want to use from the list, and can change as often as you like.
Advangates are that you are licenced wherever you are in the uk, no licence issues.
Disadvantages are that every man and his dog could be on this type of licence, and many many shops etc are, so it can be quite crowded. If you are in a field in the middle of nowhere, then go right ahead !.
SIMPLE SITE LICENCE - this is for site only use, usually within 1k of the base station. Again, a list of standardised frequencies, and its up to you to make sure you dont interfere with anyone else. Again, £75 for 5 years.
TECHNICALLY ASSIGNED / AREA DEFINED - this licence is for those who have anything from a wide area system, through to county or country wide systems. Ofcom will allocate you a frequency, which they wont assign to another close user - so in theory, you will never interfere with anyone else, nor will you be interfered with !.
With area defined channels, you can buy a certain frequency in 50 sq km 'slots', over the UK. If you were a courier company, and you needded the same freq all over london, you could buy a 50km square, allowing just you to use it.
Tech assigned channels vary in price - £75 a year, to £1480 a year !!!!
Area defined can go up to £9900 a year.
Only area defined that's uk wide that I know of in uhf is Tescos and M&S.
For those who want to use the licence free pmr446 radios - go buy some from Tescos. Dont buy proper radios, then come and ask us to help you put them on 446 channels. Its illegal. Your 'proper' radio will transmit at a lot more power than the 446's were ever allowed to.
If anyones got stuff to add, go for it !
George, a friend of mine surrendered his licence as he barely used his own equipment as we usually used mine on my Simple Site. He now wants to buy another one and can't seem to find the link anywhere... Do you know where the application link is?
