Irish regulator ComReg indicates approval for a novice amateur radio licence

In September of 2021, the Irish regulator COMREG issued a document titled... "Proposed Strategy for Managing the Radio Spectrum 2022 to 2024" - Link HERE

In response to this document, COMREG received 26 submissions about the part related to amateur radio.

• 10 responses were received from individual radio amateurs; and

• 16 responses were received from clubs, organisations, groups or societies

Out of that 16, a large part were from essentially the same small organisation so it's more like 10 radio radio amateurs and roughly 10 organisations/clubs.

Some of the submissions were in relation to higher power limits. Another however was for COMREG to consider introducing a new novice amateur radio licence.

Graphic from the original ComReg document

In response, ComReg wrote...

"ComReg’s assessment on novice licences

4.61 Taking into account the support expressed for entry-level or novice-licensing and

the strong justifications given above, ComReg will seek, in the timeline of this

strategy statement and subject to resources, to put in place a framework for

novice licensing in Ireland.

4.62 It is envisaged that to achieve this, ComReg will need to:

▪ Consult on its proposals;

▪ Make new Regulations, with the consent of the DECC Minister under

Section 6 of the Wireless Telegraphy Act ,1926, as amended; and

▪ tender for an external party to run any examination that may be required.

At this time ComReg would consider if that examination is best offered

online and, as a consequence, can be taken at any time."

The document with a summary of the proposals and the response from ComReg can be seen HERE

I was curious about what type of novice amateur radio licences were in other countries and I found this document on the DARC website (national society for radio amateurs in Germany). You can download it from HERE

There seems  to be quite a variation in what it allowed. Some countries have a novice licence which allows extensive use of the HF and VHF bands and is little different from a full licence, some are VHF only and some allow limited access to the HF bands.

We'll have to wait and see what ComReg come up with but it has to be generous enough that it gets people interested but not undermine the existing full amateur radio licence.

One of the submissions justified the novice licence by means of STEM - Science, Technology, Engineering & Maths:

• such an action would align with the national policy for Ireland to be a leader in nurturing, developing and deploying STEM talent and the availability of a novice licence would enable the amateur radio service to act in the national interest;

It's not hard to imaging this being a good fit with say an allocation on the VHF bands and making use of the array of cubesats now in orbit. Novices could gain experience in how satellites orbit, what doppler shift is and how to make contacts through them.

If the novice licence includes an allocation on bands like 20m then I suspect it that a lot of the new callsigns will just end up on modes like FT8 and learn very little nothing in the process. It'll be just an amateur radio licence by another route.

My opinion... I'm pretty neutral about the whole novice licence and am just interested in seeing how it develops. I do hope though that ComReg look at a licence which might attract those with an interest in science and technology and not just those who want to go chase DX on the HF bands.

Irish radio amateurs gain access to huge swathes of the VHF spectrum

The Irish Radio Transmitters Society announced today in their weekly news that Irish radio amateurs are to gain access to a huge part of the low band VHF spectrum.

EI stations will now have access to 30 to 49 MHz...all 19 MHz!!! The spectrum from 54 to 69.9 MHz has also been allocated... another 16 MHz! All of this is on a secondary basis and a 50 watt power limit.

Over the years, it's usual for the IRTS to lobby the licensing authority to get access to a small band here and there but not on this scale. I'm still assuming it isn't a mistake as the information on the Comreg website has been verified in the IRTS news. It may well be possible that it may in time become more defined as two distinct bands in the 40 MHz and 60 MHz region but for now, you can see the allocation as per the Comreg website shown above.

IRTS News...
Additional Frequencies
In December 2015 ComReg published a Draft Radio spectrum Management Strategy 2016-2018. The Society responded with a comprehensive submission to this draft and a summary of this was published in the March 2016 edition of Echo Ireland.

In June 2016 ComReg published its final Radio Spectrum Management Strategy 2016-2018 and indicated its intention to grant some additional spectrum to the amateur service. This has now been done and is in line with some of the requests made in the Society’s submission.

The 70 MHz band has been extended to 69.9 MHz to 70.5 MHz. This is an increase of 275kHz over the existing band of 70.125 to 70.450 MHz and is the full band that may be allocated to the amateur service under the European Common Allocations table.

Further spectrum covering all modes including digimodes has been granted on a secondary basis at 30 to 49 MHz and 54 to 69.9 MHz. The latter band also includes digital television in addition to all other modes. These new frequency bands are listed among the bands available generally to radio amateurs in Annex 1 of a recently revised version of the Amateur Station Licence Guidelines document ComReg 09/45 R4 which is available on the ComReg website.

The new bands in the 40 MHz and 60 MHz regions will, among other things, facilitate modern type beacons in the region of these frequencies as well as moving the existing 70MHz beacon on 70.130 MHz to the section of the band designated for beacons.

IRTS will be producing a local band plans for these two bands in consultation with countries that have allocations at these frequencies and IARU.

The Society would like to express its appreciation to ComReg for the release of this extensive spectrum to the amateur service on a secondary basis.

Source : IRTS News - 29th April 2018

Subsequent news item from the Royal Society of Great Britain (RSGB)..."In a landmark step, the Irish regulator Comreg has agreed to amateur access, on a secondary basis, to an extensive amount of VHF spectrum including 30-49MHz and 54-69.9MHz. In addition, their existing 4m band has been widened to the full 69.9-70.5 MHz CEPT range. It is expected that this will facilitate a number of innovative developments, including digital amateur television and new or realigned VHF propagation beacons. The RSGB congratulates its IRTS colleagues on their success, which dates back to a 2016 consultation input."

UK Radio Spectrum Review Shows Increased Noise on VHF Bands

Ofcom is the organisation that is responsible for radio regulation in the UK and they have just released a document for a review of the UHF spectrum from 410 to 470 MHz. While most of the report covers the UHF spectrum as expected, they do make a reference to the increase noise levels on the lower VHF bands.

In the chart below, 'Band 1' covers 55 to 68 MHz while 'VHF Low' covers 68 to 87.5 MHz.

In the past, the assumed noise floor for radios was -116dBm and the planned coverage area of a radio system was -104dBm, i.e. 12 dB over the noise floor.

What Ofcom have found is that the actual noise floor is currently 12dB higher than previously thought. As a result, the planned service signal level must now be -92dBm.

This higher noise level is likely due to a variety of sources. Just think of the extra electrical power lines, increased use of switch mode power supplies in electrical equipment and the vast multitude of computer and IT systems. Taken all together, they result in a large increase in electrical noise especially in urban areas.

What this means for amateur radio is that bands like 4 metres (70 MHz) and 6 metres (50 MHz) are likely to be much noisier than they used to be in the past. Higher VHF and UHF bands are not effected as badly. It's likely that the extra noise levels also extend down to the higher HF frequencies like 14 to 28 MHz as well.

This higher noise floor as announced by Ofcom is in contrast to what was said by Comreg, the Irish licensing authority. In response to a submission by the Irish Radio Transmitters Society, they said the following in a report published in mid-2016....

2:17 ComReg notes that no evidence was provided by the IRTS to support its assertion that the noise floor is increasing and, further, ComReg observes that its monitoring activities do not indicate a significant increase in the noise floor on the whole;

Perhaps the noise levels in the Ofcom report are based on the very large urban areas in the UK but it's hard to imagine that the noise levels haven't increased substantially in the various Irish cities and towns in the last 20 years.

Links...
1) Ofcom Strategic Reeview of UHF Band 1 and 2 410 to 470 MHz
2) Comreg Radio Spectrum Management Strategy 2016 to 2018