[SiriusHardware]

There's a difference here. Legitimate amateurs, to a certain extent, police the band themselves and will be only too happy to build a case against consistent unlicensed users of their frequencies and then hand it to Ofcom on a plate.

Also, as I mentioned, misuse of the repeater would require the repeater keeper to act, most likely by shutting it down if the misuse appeared likely to continue.

CB is a different case, it lost much of its rights to protection when it went licence free although of course Ofcom should still care about the use of 400W amplifiers on that system, but are only really likely to get involved in cases of persistent interference to another user, either a TV viewer or worse still some mission critical radio link.

This is another reason why I think AR should never go licence free, and in fact I would prefer it if we were still paying the £15 annual fee because at least then we could argue we were paying something towards the 'upkeep' of the system and therefore entitled to some sort of action against illegal use or interference.

As said, we don't even need to be having this conversation because it is so ridiculously easy - compared to what we had to do in the past - to gain an amateur licence, and anyone who does so will be more than welcome to use any amateur facility including the repeaters, legitimately.