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Ofcom Noise Complaint

Peter — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 15:52:34 +0000

A while back in April (Go read the post for noise info), I posted saying that I started the process of issuing a noise complaint with Ofcom. After filling in the forms on their website it took about 3 weeks to get a reply from Ian (Senior Field Engineer), who advised me another chap called Pete would be dealing the complaint and this is where it started!

After returning from the Isle of Arran (Friday on the week I returned in fact), Pete came out with a van full of toys ready to check my station over to make sure I wasn’t causing the S9 of hash on every band from 80m to 2m. Which I knew we wasn’t and he said he appreciated the video files and Google Map of pins where I thought the noise might be coming from.

With all that data he set off with his spectrum analyser and headed off towards the college on the other side of the river, soon to return later saying he found the source which was a faulty thermostat. This is when the fun and games started, weeks passed and on a weeky basis I’d drop Ofcom an email with an update saying nothing had happen and they’d call me confirming similar and this went on for weeks.

But then I got a call from them confirming they’ve decided to ramp up the pressure and they expected something to happen soon, not that convinced I left to go see family during the second week of August to return to a quiet radio spectrum at first I thought it couldn’t be true but it was and the noise level without any preamps is ZERO and with PREAMP 1 in on the FT-950 it flutters between zero and S-1.

This fix was soon confirmed by a call from Ofcom who advised me that they’d been told that work had been carried out to sort the problem and I was able to say it seemed to have happened this time.

I’m really pleased that Ofcom are still interested in protecting the “radio amateur”, and this took them 4 months of pestering and to get a final good outcome. Just hope the bands stay quiet.

Local Interference QRM and Ofcom

Peter — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 21:57:14 +0000

So I’ve started the process of dealing with Ofcom regarding a interference noise problem which has started locally within the last month which spreads from 3.5MHz to 145MHz it peaks at its worst around 14MHz making the band pretty unusable.

Noise seems to last between 20secs to 2 minutes and with a break of 25secs to a minute apart and is there regardless of the time of day, and isn’t coming from our QTH that I can find (still there after turning the power off!) and seems worse when you beam North to South East which is in the general direction of a College and its many buildings!

I was a bit unsure how to proceed so after a trip to ENT for a checkup (Went well, bit deaf but infections gone) I called Ofcom and spoke to a nice chap who explained how to proceed using the forms on the website and once I’d done that an assigned engineer should be in touch within 48hours so the wait starts!

I’ll document the process a it proceeds!

Not given up yet with Callbook.org.uk

Peter — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 17:13:04 +0000

So I’ve restarted my efforts in getting the UK amateur radio callbook data to make a “callbook” available online, how? by making yet another request for it under Freedom of Information and another asking for it under commercial licence; how Ofcom will respond who knows but I really do live in hope.

The wait continues!

Spectrum Defence Fund

Peter — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 10:54:04 +0000

In the January issue of Radcom, the RSGB has announced that it has setup a “Spectrum Defence Fund” to help raise the money required to challenge Ofcom over its interpretation of PLA/PLT and the threat.. as such they need to raise the money to pay the legal fees which they expect to be in excess of £75,000.

You can find out more about making a donation at http://www.rsgb.org/defencefund/ and help this worthy cause.

Callbook Delays

Peter — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 16:43:14 +0000

As I posted earlier this month I’d applied to the Office of Communications for the UK amateur radio callbook data in the hope of making the data available on-line via a custom search engine. Over a month passed without communications but things did start heating up, within the amateur radio community about Ofcom wanting to make this data public.

With issues of privacy which completely baffles me as the Radio Society of Great Britain make the data available via a paperback yearbook and PW Publishing make a CD and supply it for a couple of pounds. and nearly every other country makes this data available look at USA (FCC) and Australia.

Then last week I got an email from Ofcom saying that they’ve decided to suspended further distribution of the callbook data, whilst they explore options with the Information Commissioner’s Office. This oddly enough came the same week the RSGB confronted Ofcom over license database publication due to breach of the Data Protection Act, if this is the case are the RSGB not also at fault? or is there some licence which makes them “OK”. Either way I think personally that it comes down to the fact that if its made available it would effect there profits with the yearbook and callseeker cd.

So the wait continues the actual programming side of http://www.callbook.org.uk is finished, its just missing data I am tempted to import the US FCC data and at least get the callbook live and allow others to add there details but that really wasn’t what I had planned to do.

Its rather frustrating that Ofcom supplied a method to apply for the data under strict licence then revoke it within a month. I’ll keep everyone posted to how things plan out I definitely will not be giving up and will get the site online as soon as I can without breaking any laws myself

Callbook.org.uk

Peter — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 11:14:59 +0000

I requested the UK Callbook data from Ofcom about 2 weeks ago to this day, via there request form but yet to hear anything back even chasing them up via a number of emails but yet to get a proper response its pretty poor communication from a government body who represents just that.

Either way I will not give up, and have registered http://www.callbook.org.uk in anticipation of getting the data hopefully within the next couple of weeks.

If your interested in knowing when the site is like just use the form on the site and I’ll drop you a note once its live.