Shez Posted May 21, 2009 Share Posted May 21, 2009 Zaxcom already do, for one. There are issues with latency, multiple AD/DA conversions, lossy compression quality, graceful degradation and others with this approach though. Sennhesier have looked at digital transmission and if memory serves concluded that to get good enough quality with a digital system would need more bandwidth than an analogue one, not less! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jivemaster Posted May 21, 2009 Share Posted May 21, 2009 I suspect that things will depend on the global significance of the UK market. China PLC is doing it's bit pumping low end radio mics into the country on UHF (somewhere!) which is and will be used outside the regulatory sytem. There were some mics on 108 - 136 a while ago being boot faired for sub £10. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shez Posted May 21, 2009 Share Posted May 21, 2009 I believe part of the thinking behind this whole DDR malarkey is to bring us more in to line with the rest of Europe - if this does turn out to be the case for radio mic spectrum (it may just be for tv / mobile broadband etc.) then the larger European market may be a useful carrot for the bigger manufacturers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stan Hope-Streeter Posted May 22, 2009 Share Posted May 22, 2009 There were some mics on 108 - 136 a while ago being boot faired for sub £10.<br /> Ouch. Somebody really *will* get the book thrown at them if they are caught using those... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulears Posted May 22, 2009 Author Share Posted May 22, 2009 The facts of life nowadays, Stan, are that interference to protected services - and this usually means any of the uniformed services and aviation safety gets priority. Interference to secondary services is next, and leisure services don't really score at all. So somebody running a few mW in the VHF airband might get noticed if they were very, very close, but narrow band am is pretty immune from wideband, low power fm. You don't see many vehicles with spinning roof racks around any longer. Does anyone know of any radio mic users being prosecuted for not having a license? eBay remove items when people report them as illegal to use - and that's probably as good as it gets. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stan Hope-Streeter Posted May 22, 2009 Share Posted May 22, 2009 ....anyone know of any radio mic users being prosecuted for not having a license? eBay remove items when people report them as illegal to use - and that's probably as good as it gets.<br /><br /><br />I agree, see my reply to the radio mics thread. <br />However, in the unlikely event... a magistrate is going to be mightily impressed when the prosecuting council makes a big song and dance about this being the air band, and asks for the maximum penalty.<br /> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TAG1960 Posted June 10, 2009 Share Posted June 10, 2009 Does anyone know of any radio mic users being prosecuted for not having a license? Ofcom do have the right to enter any site and investigate UHF broadcast usage. At last years Open Golf at Birkdale 2 inspectors arrived in response to foreign TV crews using over powered UHF up link equipment. They then checked ALL UHF transmission equipment on site inc Radio mics ,Walkie Talkies and Base Stations. All our equipment was licensed so no problems for us, but I believe they stopped the use of non licensed equipment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cedd Posted June 10, 2009 Share Posted June 10, 2009 Ofcom do have the right to enter any site and investigate UHF broadcast usage. At last years Open Golf at Birkdale 2 inspectors arrived in response to foreign TV crews using over powered UHF up link equipment. They then checked ALL UHF transmission equipment on site inc Radio mics ,Walkie Talkies and Base Stations. All our equipment was licensed so no problems for us, but I believe they stopped the use of non licensed equipment.The Ofcom technical investigation officers do have some pretty hefty abilities, from breaking into and searching pirate radio stations, to siezing equipment. That said, Ofcom generally nowadays aren't proactive in their work. They tend to respond to interference complaints. They have listening stations, the main one being at Baldock with several remote ones all over the country. Of course the question is, how would they know if what they were picking up was licensed or not on our frequencies? I think the chances of our transmissions reaching a listening station anyway are pretty slim, so the most probable cause of being found out would be a complaint from another user due to interference. All of the above said, I DO NOT advocate the use of equipment without a license. It's one of the reasons I think we're in this mess at the minute - on paper we don't look like many users. We have to also remember that the spectrum we operate in is now worth money. Ofcom changed their way of looking at spectrum, from a resource to be managed, to a product able to be sold. Our spectrum is very attractive and will go for an awful lot of money if the 3G case is to be followed. If we operate without licenses, we aren't paying what's "owed" (in Ofcom's eyes) for our chunk of spectrum, therefore it isn't profitable and gets sold off. I know there's JFMG, the band manager sat in the middle of this, but they pay Ofcom and we pay them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
handyandi Posted June 10, 2009 Share Posted June 10, 2009 They have listening stations, the main one being at Baldock with several remote ones all over the country. From what I can gather the Radio station in Baldock is being converted into an equine centre! Always wondered what it did though, when driving past every day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cedd Posted June 10, 2009 Share Posted June 10, 2009 From what I can gather the Radio station in Baldock is being converted into an equine centre! Always wondered what it did though, when driving past every day.News to me if it is! Was speaking to a couple of guys from there last week about an interference report. Will have a talk to a few of my contacts in Ofcom and see what I can find out. Yeah, Baldock is the central monitoring place. Has modem links out to the remote monitoring and if you report some interference, it goes through there and gets passed down to the local officers (Assuming they still have some). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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