by G4RMT » Mon Jun 11, 2018 5:47 pm
Anybody want to buy a radio or two, This is common sense, from bean counters. Their logic is amazingly flawed. The bands are empty, so under threat. The solution is to fill them with people who have different interests to the current inhabitants. All it means is that the ham system will simply die, and be replaced by something different. If I was a repeater keeper - why would I bother? To safeguard one system, they start a new one? I know we often argue the merits and status of ham radio - as in My G4 trumps a 2E something - joke! but you often hear petty bickering on this subject. A whole new licence class, with watered down entry requirements, and perhaps high numbers? Can you imagine?
70cm belongs to the MOD, the report is off target on the cost, by the way. OFCOM published the info that it can be up to 1.5 million per MHz, not a paltry million - so a few thousand hams stand no chance if they wish to sell it off. If the new licence ups it to double, they'll still sell it off. However - they seem to be reading the actual ITU rules somewhat differently. I cannot see how the minimum requirements can be met in 7 hours. Educationally 7 hours to get all this covered is ludicrous - at best, 7 hours is a skim across the subject.
Any person seeking a licence to operate an amateur station should demonstrate theoretical knowledge of:
– Radio regulations
– international
– domestic
– Methods of radiocommunication
– radiotelephony
– radiotelegraphy
– data and image
– Radio system theory
– transmitters
– receivers
– antennas and propagation
– measurements
– Radio emission safety
– Operating procedures
– Electromagnetic compatibility
– Avoidance and resolution of radio frequency interference.
30 minutes on each, or an hour on some and 10 minutes on others? Seriously, some of these subjects are complex, and to people with no maths, impossible too understand without very intensive schooling. Somebody used to soaking in information quickly, with a good grasp of maths and science could do it, but my experience with 16-21 yr olds in college is that you could easily spend 2 hours on one of those subject areas and have everyone fail the Q&A at the end.
If Southgate ARC are proposing this themselves - not that clear if it's them or the RSGB proposing this - they're plainly very out of touch. After all - these are minimum recommendations with NO criteria. Demonstrate theoretical knowledge is an educational slip-knot. Theory is a rotten one - as in what? If you tag the word understand, then you need to also tag at what level. So add theory to electromagnetic compatibility. Anyone care to ask a question that will test they even know what electromagnetic compatibility even is? Can anyone put together a question that would be able to be asked to 6 year olds in yr 1 that would allow them to demonstrate theoretical knowledge of electromagnetic compatibility? Then try it for somebody 15 or 16 doing their GCSEs in the lower tier - with D grade a prediction. Then somebody doing A Levels.
These topic areas are pretty well what I had to look at in 1979. All we've done is change the depth. It's a hobby that needs a minimum level of technical expertise. We've all seen what happens when unskilled people buy big amplifiers and don't understand how they work, wiping out TVs and other devices.
Madness. I'd rather lose the band. 2m I suspect is safe because of propagation and interference to services abroad, 70cm could also creep into this safety band too.