Correspondence to the R.A

Following the submission of the 2 proposals to the Radio Authority I decided to send an e-mail to try to find out for myself what could be done to make legislation in the UK a reality. Here are copies of my letter, and the reply received from the Radio Authority. Judge for yourself the attitude of the Radio Authority towards legislation in the UK!

My letter, e-mailed to the Radio Authority on 22nd of March 1997

I am writing this e-mail in the vain hope that I may get some kind of response about your views on the possibility of legalising Packet Radio on 27 Mhz in the UK.

I am the owner and sysop of a packet radio bbs in the London area, to date we have @ 20 regular users in our area alone.I realise that at this present moment in time we are in contravention of our licence conditions, only recently your department "paid a visit" to one of our members, resulting in the loss of all his radio and computer equipment, as well as an impending court case.

I personally have no sympathy for the member in question, he was running illegal power, and using Amateur specification radio equipment.

However the majority of our users are law abiding citizens, running legal power, rigs and aerials, and I cannot comprehend why this should be such a problem to your department.

As a direct result of your "visit" packet activity has ceased in this area, why is it that some European countries have legalised packet already, and we in the UK live under constant threat of having our equipment confiscated?

Will it really have to be that interested parties like myself will have to take your department to the European Courts of Justice in order to get our voice heard?

I can legally use all of the equipment that I have for packet radio in Denmark, Holland, Belgium and Germany, to name just a few, so why not in my own country?

I suspect that the reason that we are being held back is that you are frightened of a backlash from the Amateur Radio fraternity. (am I wrong?)

I am one of the many users in the UK that is sick and tired of the misuse of the 27 Mhz band, music playing, bad language etc, what has your department done about this? Nothing.

What do we get for our £15.00 licence fee? A piece of paper, that is all, no backup from the Government whatsoever, as usual (In my opinion) a case of take the money and run.

I would appreciate a reply to this e-mail, I suspect however that the first contact that I receive will be a knock on my door!!!

Yours sincerely,

Alan Mears.

 The Radio Authority reply, received 24th March 1997

 Citizens Band Radio

Thank you for your e-mail of 22nd March 1997 concerning the possibility of legalising Packet radio on CB frequencies. May I apologise for the delay in my reply.

I am sure that you are aware that we recently sent a survey to all licensed CB users within the UK. One of the questions we asked was whether CBers' would like the option for Packet Radio. the results of the survey clearly indicated that the majority of licensees did not want such a service. Also a large percentage who stated they would like the option ,were not aware of the implications. For example, if packet radio was legalised, a number of frequencies currently available for voice would have to be sacrificed. In addition, Packet messages tend to corrupt voice messages which by definition would lead to more interference.

However during our last Bi-annual CB Forum (in which a number of organisations within the CB community are invited) in January, a paper proposing the introduction of packet within the UK was submitted to the agency. In response, we have invited all interested parties to examine closely the proposal and submit views supportive or otherwise in time for the next meeting. It must be emphasised however, that because we have no mandate for this service, the agency considers this to be of low priority.

We are aware that there is much abuse of the CB radio channels and where possible we do take action against people who use CB radio either with no licence or outside licence conditions. However, we have limited resources and have to give priority to dealing with problems which affect the emergency services and businesses.
Thus, there is not a great deal of time available for untargeted monitoring of the bands used by CB radio services. Nevertheless, you may be interested to know that in 1996 we successfully prosecuted 15 individuals for offences concerning CB radio. Total fines imposed were £705 with costs of £2,815. Also a further 98 people were sent official warning letters.

Yours sincerely

Aaron Abiaw
Floor 11 (North)
Amateur and citizens band services

My Conclusion

Well there you have it folks! straight from the horses mouth. In my opinion the Radio Authority couldn't give a toss. 15 people prosecuted last year for CB related offences, big deal!

For packet radio to become legal in the UK we will need nothing short of a miracle, or a few thousand letters to Mr Aiaw at the R.A! Who knows maybe a change of Government on May 1st will bring changes.

Maybe next year I will join The thousands of unlicensed CBers' in the UK, after all they seem to be getting as much as us licensed users.

Without people like myself paying our licence fees people like dear Mr Abiaw would be out of a job, and still our opinion is worth nothing.

39% of licensed CBers who returned their survey voted in favour of Packet on 27 Mhz, if this was a general election and my opposing party already had that percentage I would be worried.

Still what do I know, after all I'm only a CBer!

If you have comments or suggestions, email me at [email protected]

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