Breaking News: Ship Radio Licensing

All

An old subject that has been the subject of much work (by both RA and lately Ofcom) over the last 2 years. The object of the game is to make it easier and less restrictive for the end user to obtain this piece of documentation for radio carrying vessels.

Today Ofcom has published a consultation document in order to get the opinion of “stakeholders” on the results found and the preferred way forward for British vessels. The result will surprise many of those who object to the licence in the first place but hey maybe we weren’t that bad after all.

Please have a look at this [url="http://www.ofcom.org.uk/consult/condocs/src/"]http://www.ofcom.org.uk/consult/condocs/src/ [/url] you can of course make your thoughts known using the response forms.

Mike
 

tcm

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hm well this is most interesting. A report by the people whose sole purpose is to give out radio licences, which says that the radio licences are actually Quite Good. Staggering.

I wonder if they will change the website so that it works? Or if they will change their internal procedures so that when we send off the form, the radio licence might take less than two months (and waiting) to arrive?

The word "stakeholder" was dreamed up by new labour halfway through a press conference one morning some years ago, and they have been desperately trying to attach a meaning to it ever since. FYI, i am not in the least bit a "stakeholder" in the radio licencing authority any more than a jailbird is a "stakeholder" in the prison system.

Mind you, loads better than the french system, so far: they'll only speak in french, and their forms aren't available to be sent other than to french people. Thus, i have now had the boat three years, and after loads of attempts to buy a radio licence, i have utterly failed. It's probably due to not enough money being spent on public "services"...
 

BrendanS

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It does sound sensible. The administrative overhead in annual renewals, bearing in mind the relatively small number of people/boats involved, must be quite significant, and is hardly a huge revenue earner. Making the licence last for the life of the boat, and in addition making the licence available free of charge if downloaded from the internet will do away with a huge amount of administrative overheads, as well as negating many of the comments often heard on these forums.

Sounds pretty good to me
PS, more info here http://www.ofcom.org.uk/media_office/latest_news/nr_20050222
 

gjgm

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this is going nowhere.
With a world class Gvmt that has dragged the country out of a culture of jobs for the boys, and savagely cut unnecessary employment (surely, added another 850,000 pointless civil servant jobs,ed?), the notion that there could be an efficiency in getting people to apply themselves on-line, and not then having to re-apply every 12 months is a non starter.
Personally, I feel much more content knowing that my fee isnt going to controlling the radio spectrum, but is being spent..er, well, umm...

No. Its outrageous. Where's the proposal for some sort of new tax, based on radio waves effecting the icecap off the Isle of Wight??

yours,
Lord Labour of Jags (2)

Incidentally, what might the new one off charge be.. does have some bearing on the vote...
 

jjc

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I have just cancelled my old licence on the web and applied for one for my new boat and all went very smoothly. Licence arrived in 3 days, e-mail with call sign/MMSI in 2 hours. This must be a vast improvement on the old system.

John
 

duncan

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I too have had no problems with the existing online service either - all smooth and easy.

Re the changes - excellent and sensible spring to mind as responses; doubt it will happen therefore!

33-1 the excuse will be that they couldn't get EU approval to the proposed user printed licences due to possible variation in colour printing.
 

rickp

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Only works if you're blessed with the specific versions of microsoft software that they bothered to code for (because coding to standards, rather than microsoft's non-standards is apparently much harder, expensive or some other lame excuse).

I see no reason to expect a replacement web-based system to be any more flexible, given the attitude shown so far.

Rick
 

steverow

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Yes some of it looks good.
Shame that they are not taking the opportunity to do something about the silly SRC of C requirement, either beef it up to make it useful, or do away with it altogether. Ditto the LRC for already qualified radio people.
They could consider at least giving the SRC training to a semi-competent organisation like the RSGB, who might ,on a good day, know a bit about radio.
You only have to look at some of the posts on here about simple issues on antennae and installation problems to see that training for the VHF Cof C is not adequate. The RYA are fine in their own field...but that field isnt radio.

In the US they dont need qualifications to operate HF/MF...so why here?

They should also take a look at dual use amateur/marine usage.
There are many hams on these forums, and as things stand at the moment, we have to have two HF radios to stay legal, when one would adequately suffice for both. They are so similar in technical specs, apart from the less frills and buttons on a marine radio.

Could Mike elaborate on what these spot fines for certain types of equipment will be....and who is going to police it?

One note of caution, if the licence requirement is removed altogether, then that could open the way for lots of land based, non marine use piracy, making the SOLAS system dangerously unuseable, as it will not be policed in any way...it hardly is now anyway. Not saying it will, but the possibility is there.
It at least needs the illusion of control and spectrum protection.
With the price of marine radios tumbling, already cheaper than a decent CB radio,
that could make marine frequencies a very attractive alternative to CB or PMR446...with much better range than either.

Best wishes to Mike, and sorry to see he's taking redundancy.
We'll lose a good ally.
Any idea what you are going to do next Mike?


Steve.
 
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