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UK Ham Radio Reg Plans To Drop 15 min Callsign Interval and Allow Encryption

First time accepted submitter product_bucket writes A consultation published by the UK Radio Regulator Ofcom seeks views on its plan to remove the mandatory 15 minute callsign identifier interval for amateur radio licensees. The regulator also intends to permit the use of encryption by a single volunteer emergency communications organization. The consultation is open until 20th October, and views are sought by interested parties.

5 of 104 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Why encryption only for one body? by mwvdlee · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Because the rest can just use steganography and encryption as usual.

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  2. They did scrap the rules... by Viol8 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ... they just called it CB.

    In theory a great idea, in practice you got a load if halfwit teenagers and other dimwits who had nothing to say keying up over people trying to have a sensible conversation and generally causing a nuisance. What with them and the people who seemed to think playing music from a crappy cassette tape into the mic suddenly turned their bedroom rig into Kiss FM eventually made CB unusable and it died (in the UK anyway) apart from the occasional diehard and some truckers.

  3. Re:Scrap all the rules by AlecC · · Score: 5, Insightful

    EM spectrum is a scarce resource, shared between all the community. If one person fills up the spectrum with high powered broadcasts, they deny others the use of that spectrum for potentially more valuable resources. You cannot buy or manufacture more electromagnetic spectrum: what we have is all there is, and more people want it than than there is space for. Would you be happy if, for example, I knocked out all WiFi and cell signals for ten miles around my house? Would you be happy if I overloaded the frequencies used by the emergency services? Would you be happy if I filled the TV frequencies with hardcore porn or a terrorist manifesto?

    You have to be a sociopath not to expect there to be some sharing of limited resources.

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  4. Re:Scrap all the rules by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    Ahh ye old cry of the champion of the lack of critical thinking. Children might... something something.... children!

    We sit our children down in front of the TV and ignore it, trusting that somebody else will make sure they can't see anything objectionable. God forbid we take responsibility for raising our own offspring.

    Don't you think that if the broadcast TV channels were open to anything and everything we wouldn't blithely sit our children down in front of them? I know the concept of critical thinking is alien to you but 2+2 should still be understandable.

    There's hardcore pornography on the internet too, and a whole lot more. The answer is naturally, not to allow your child unsupervised on the internet. But that would take effort on your part, instead of crying to the rest of society to demand we make the world into something that won't let your child find anything awkward in it.

    "Children might" is not a good reason for anything on its own. Your children might drink bleach, the answer is not to ban bleach, the answer is to expect you to keep the fucking bleach away from your kid until you've taught him better. This logic applies to a great many things.

  5. Re:Scrap all the rules by AlecC · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I entirely agree one should supervise children. Children should only be watching safe channels, and adults should supervise them. But your proposal is to invade the safe channel - to replace Cartoon Network with snuff movies. This is not putting porn where the unsupervised can find it, this is forcing porn into areas where reasonable people would not expect to find it.

    It is not "children might", it is "you are forcing on children". The difference between consensual sex and rape, the difference between guns in self defence and firing at random in a shopping mall.

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