Quote:
Originally Posted by SiriusHardware
operation of a transmitter without a valid license is a serious offence
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yes, I know this.
I am licensed. It is therefore legal for my unlicensed XYL/apprentice/daughter etc to operate my 2m station under my supervision.
does supervision mean in the literal sense for the purposes of legality? what if I am in the next room with no clear line of sight? across the yard? down the road? on the other side of the county?
My apprentice is legally working under my supervision, but I judge him to sufficiently competent at many potentially dangerous tasks to undertake them under his own steam, well out of sight of me.
I am advocating on behalf of the devil to an extent here, and as SiriusHW suggests, the right thing to do, in the spirit of the license, is of course to make the Foundation exam part of the training.
I shamefacedly admit that I had not considered the role of the repeater keeper, and I would not wish to put this person in the difficult position of having to shut it down in the face of such anarchy.
The license fee is (or was) essentially a just tax to pay for the policing of RF spectrum. The tacit message when the license fee was dropped was really "you are on your own now"; there is no effective recourse in the case of RF interference on or abuse of the amateur bands. I suspect this was as a direct result of OFCOM realising that ADSL broadband was just going to be overwhelmingly more popular than HF radio ever has been or will be.
Indeed, ofcom cannot be bothered (more like they simply no longer have any resources) with jerrybuilt QRO amplifiers on 6MHz and 27MHz. Why should they, when nobody is paying for the privilege of these bands. However, if such an amplifier splatters into a lucrative GSM band, they will still turn out oldskool, in a landrover with loads of aerials, DF'ing away, staking out etc etc. impressive, I have seen it.