Taken from www.jfmg.co.uk newsletter
16/3/2006 Cleaning-up at the NEC during Crufts

JFMG were on-site at Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre (NEC) last week to support all licensed users’ operations. This year’s premier dog show coincided with the X-Factor Live UK tour at the adjacent NEC Arena. The operation was planned in response to feedback from users at the 2005 show.


Working closely with Ofcom’s regional staff and with the full support of the event organisers, interference reports were investigated and unlicensed operations traced. This included licensed Ch69 users straying way off their permitted channels into Ch61. Ofcom are following-up.

End of extract.

Oops!

Love to know who that was
tee hee

Good.

When I use radio mics I make a point of using licenced frequencies to avoid conflict with the general use ones. It's good to see the JFMG protecting the interests of people who bother to be legal.

Bob

Good Job Ofcom I didnt have to switch a frequency all week (think we had 15 in total) first time in years.

I have definitely seen a rise in inspections recently so watch out you naughty radio mics.

'the lengths they go to, to get in free'

The gent I do a bit of work for has for his confrence work 20 channels of Sennheiser 500 series G2 and I would be amased if he has these lisenced.

Whats the procedure/terms for licensing nowadays?

Have a look in the Sound FAQ pinned to the top of this forum.

Have a look at: http://www.jfmg.co.uk/jfmgecom/

This crowd takes care of the UK regulated frequencies for program making and special events (PMSE).

And OFCOM do the fining / procescuting, and have all the toys the radio authority had in order to find out who's not playing nice...

It's good to see someone ( JFMG/Ofcom ) doing something about illegal use of radio mic frequencies. You have to consider that the government get huge amounts of money from various industries ( such as mobile phone co's ) by selling frequencies, and we as radio mic users don't have the buying power of Vodafone/Orange/O2/Three etc, BUT we must contribute something if we are to continue to be allocated frequencies, so we have to pay, it's really not a lot of money to get a Ch:69 standard licence, and it gives us a voice...please do it or we may loose the frequency allocation that we have always taken for-granted! I know that what we do contributes in other ways ( TV / Theatre / Conference production etc ) to our governments financial rewards, but we still need to defend our frequencies, and hence have a voice.

So far ( as far as I am aware ) only Sabine and Sennheiser USA have had any attempt at digital radio transmission, and I believe they all have issues in reliability, latency etc ( well done for starting the ball rolling - someone needed to ), but this ( UK ) industry is not yet ready to dump thousands ( maybe 10's of thousands?? ) of radio mic systems. It will have a huge impact on what we do. So lets join JFMG in defending our allocation / re-allocatioin of radio frequencies.

Sermon over!

Oliver.

There are a lot of mics coming into the country via Ebay etc on incorrect frequencies - some of them are blatant copies of the real thing. I have seen Shure SM58 LX88 systems on 200Mhz+ frequencies that look very similar until opened and then they are completely different. The real problem here are the mobile jocks etc (DJ's not the scottish!) who probably dont realise they have an illegal set.

I'm not a nosie boy BUT:

How easy is it to slip out of unliscened frequencies and not realise it? for example if you were an amatuer group and were having problems with one of your lisceneced radio mics, and decided to change frequencie by pressing the up button how easy is it to change to an unliscened frequncy, how would an amatuer know?

I'm just working on the theory that some people may not be awear that they are being illegal, ?

cheers

AndyJones

With modern frequency agile equipment it's very easy to switch to a frequency you're not licenced for (or, more commonly, from a de-regulated general frequency to one that should have a licence). The number of posts you see in here basically going "Licence? Huh?" makes you realise how many people don't know that licences even come into it.

That's probably why the general ambience of this thread is "good thing". Those of us who DO pay for licenced frequencies don't want others straying onto our channels. I'm all for enforcement.

(And, at the risk of "me tooing" a thread above, I also suggest that everyone read what the JFMG site has to say about "Spectrum Pricing" and potential problems for radio mic users. The more who make their protests to the government, the better.)

Bob

How would people feel if you had to buy a licence for every new radio mic?
IE everyone would have to be licenced, at maybe a nominal charge?

There are many complications - regulation, sale, transfer of licence, legacy systems, ebay, offshore sales etc but as a principle what do people think?

That idea may work, but the licence cost for the whole of channel 69 is hardly excessive anymore. If people don't have licences now, then they are not likely to in the future.

However, I think the system works very well as it is now. I like to know that when I apply for a site specific licence list, I know that there shouldn't be anyone else on it in the area and if there is, I can make JFMG do some work for their money. RF planning for a major event takes a lot of thought and at least with the current system we have some hope of it working!

not radio mics, but I was looking for a wireless video camera recently, and found the very thing - scarcely bigger than one new penny,could be mains powered or powered by the battery cable from a pp3 for up to 6 hours, transmits full colour and audio, and less than £50 plus VAT. luckily I read the whole thing before clicking the "buy now" button - and saw radiated power 50mW at 1.2GHz - not legal for use in UK. the other model which was legal in this country (10mW at 2.4GHz) was four times the size, cost more and didn't come with battery cable included.

Does anyone know if jfmg are responsible for licensing this type of wireless equipment as well? (I'm too lazy to look it up on the website and don't know enough to understand everything I find there anyway....)

JFMG don't just take the money on behalf of the Government, they are there to manage certain frequency bands on behalf of the Government. They look after all requests for frequencies and try to match the actual available frequencies up to these requests (which is not always possible).

Everybody paying for a license when they get their kit would then be a nightmare, since everyone would then have a right to use it wherever they wanted. Imagine a west end venue with 10 radio mics, and then one day the pub next door gets a DJ who does karaoke with 3 radio mics, and their all on the same frequencies - both groups have paid for their licences. JFMG is there to stop things like this happening, and provide support for when it does happen.

It is very easy to get an illegal frequency (de-reg wise)
last year I purchased an AKG WMS 40 system on behalf of a friend, from a reputable, recognised company,
these systems are fixed frequency, but the one that arrived was a non de-regulated frequency, needless to say this was sent back, and a proper one received.
If I had not been the one doing the buying, it probably would be being used in complete ignorance that anything was wrong

Does anyone know of any successful prosecutions, fines or mics been confiscated? I could do with some e-evidence so I can scare a few people into doing the right thing.

I have done a few search but haven't turned anything up.

Whupps, following on from this thread I checked my radio mics at church, someone had changed the frequency cos of interferance, and now one of them was well into TV channel land. Fixed that quick...

...again whupsie