What is Amateur Radio?
Amateur radio, also known as Ham Radio, is a hobby that can allow Radio Amateurs to have access to a wide range of frequencies commencing down in long wave through to UHF and microwave frequencies. It has many differences to CB (citizen band radio) where Amateur Radio requires a licence which is granted after successful completion of examinations in Radio theory, regulations and for some grades of licence a practical Morse code test is required though no longer in the UK. Each licence type has differing privileges and bands.
Licence Changes
There used to be just the full licence but in the early 1990s, the novice licence was introduced with option for with or without morse code. This was very successful in getting young people into the hobby and I went this route in 1994. However, people were still unhappy that they had to pass a morse code test to be allowed to transmit under 30Mhz. Things changed with the introduction of a new licence called the Full Class A/B where the morse test was only at 5wpm (same as novices). Trainees were now allowed to operate while supervised before passing an examination. The Class A/B was eventually combined with Class A full to bring the Morse test at 5 wpm so to scrap the 12 wpm test.
There were the following licences:
- novice with Morse e.g. 2E0AAA (Class A)
- novice without Morse e.g. 2E1AAA (Class B)
- Full with Morse e.g. G0AAA M0AAA (Class A)
- Full without Morse e.g. G7AAA M1AAA (Class B)
- Class A/B with a lower speed Morse test than the class A. (M5AAA)
From 01/10/2001, the Novice licence became the intermediate licence. Intermediate.(A) licensees were allowed access to all amateur radio bands. Intermediate (B) was allowed access to all amateur bands at 50MHz and above. All Intermediate licensees are allowed 50 watts output in all bands.
The Foundation licence was introduced in January 2002. This licence will provide access to most of the amateur bands, and restrict licensees to a maximum RF out put power of 10 watts RF output. Transmitting equipment has to be commercially manufactured items, or properly designed commercial kits. It is possible to study for the Foundation licence over a weekend, and is based on the tradition that amateur radio is a hobby learnt mainly through self-training. The Foundation syllabus is based on the concept of producing "safe and competent" radio amateurs.
The resulting structure of amateur licensing is shown diagrammatically below.
The morse requirement has been scraped so there is now no A and B class. This means if you have an M3 licence and a Class B Full, you no longer need to keep the M3 going. However, not all foreign countries have dropped the morse requirement and a morse test will still have to be done if you wish to operate there with your class B licence. Morse will still be a part of the Foundation licence but the test is so easy there is no big problem with learning it.
From the 1st December 2003, the entry point for all newcomers into the hobby is via the Foundation licence, progressing on to Intermediate, culminating in the new Full licence. This prevents people from going straight to the full licence.