Last month, the RSGB launched an appeal within the pages of its RadCom magazine, urging members to become active participants in various activities for the society.
It's a really good thing, and one you'd imagine wouldn't need doing, being a society of members.
Many old timers out there, familiar with the RSGB of old, will wonder just how willing the society 'bigwigs' are to listening and surrendering any form of responsibility to 'lay' members.
The answer may lie in the silence generated by my very recent offer to help, which continues a series of correspondence during 2014 with Graham Coomber, the General Manager of the society.
First off, Mr. Coomber is always impeccably polite, and no doubt has an awful lot of correspondence both sensible and nutty to wade through daily. It's to his credit he finds time to respond at all.
But beyond that, it's been clear that, within the old man's club, there's a great reluctance to (a) accept views different from those of the society and consequently (b) that no real change is seen as necessary.
My pet issue has been making the UK a friendlier place for hams in terms of what they can and can't put up before planning needs to be a consideration.
The RSGB, via Graham Coomber, has openly and honestly admitted to me that it has failed, in the past, to win support for any changes. To be honest, I'm not sure how hard the society tried. Worse, it seems the society is using the past as a guide to the future, now concluding there's little point in having another go.
Change takes time. It also takes good skills from someone with a track record of campaigning for change. It isn't something the RSGB seems to have any heart whatsoever for doing, and so the status quo remains. With my 25+ years of successful environmental campaigning (the political, and not 'activist' sort), you'd think the RSGB might show some humility and accept offers of help. It needn't be from me, you understand, but certainly someone who has done this kind of thing before, and has an unusual degree of tenacity.
But it doesn't seem at all interested, not even as an informal representative of the society.
Not much of a member society, then!
Also evident from recent responses from the society has been an over-sensitivity to putting one's views forward. When I pointed out certain changes within Wales, the planning committee instantly rushed, like some kid found red-handed nicking sweets, to phone the Welsh Government.
I was then told that my views weren't correct, and that TAN 19, which governs telecommunications, including amateur radio (clearly as a copy-and-paste afterthought), is not generally considered for amateur planning purposes. The society also said the rules in Wales were much the same as those in England. This is true, but doesn't take into account local development plans, SPGs and the like, all of which can and do affect what happens locally, and can be made legally-binding by way of consent clauses, even if those guidances are not legal instruments in and of themselves. Not until I contacted the RSGB did it seem to realise that an entirely new piece of planning legislation was coming into existence in Wales during 2014-15.
As a regular recipient of and contributor to consultations on planning issues within Wales, I could check to see what input the RSGB had made into the new legislation, which is seen as a significant change to the rules here. Go on - hazard a guess at how much input your society had put into arguing for better planning rules for hams during the consultation? Well, I could find none at all, and a challenge to the RSGB, asking them how much input they made over the past two years has gone without reply for two months now. It's safe to assume your society made no input at all.
Now, is the view - that the official Government guidance document, TAN 19, is not of any real significance for hams - correct?
Well, I would agree that sometimes, TAN 19 may not be considered. But it is where the official guidance on amateur radio lies (and for the most part, surprisingly, makes sympathetic noises.)
What the whole episode led to was my contacting OFCOM last week for help in sourcing any document concerning 'safe' levels of RF for amateur radio. Why? Because I've been keeping tabs on a lot of planning and appeal applications, and 'health and safety' features very frequently in the decision-making, typically by councillors and officers who have next-to-no technical awareness, and set-upon by rafts of objectors fearful of any change, whether reasonable or not.
What happened? Well, I was directed by OFCOM to a shedload of documents, one of which was no longer live online, all dealing with RF radiation from - you guessed it - mobile phones.
And that was the point I was trying to make to Graham Coomber and the society all along: that amateur radio applications invariably become conflated with rules, regulations - and more importantly - fears - about mobile phone 'masts'. If my enquiries about amateur radio installations lead to OFCOM and then to rafts of irrelevant documents about mobile phone safety, then that is where enquiries from planning officers and the public will lead.
Obviously, this is not a good place to be. Unlike the ARRL, we can't even rely on any UK advice on any concerns about RF safety planners and neighbours may have - even if they shouldn't normally be considering H&S (because it's covered by existing laws and authorities.)
Mr. Coomber also told me that a member is "more likely" to gain planning permission if he/she uses the RSGB planning service. It sounds reassuring, but I doubt very much the society has the necessary evidence to demonstrate this claim is true. That's because it would need the RSGB to conduct a large-scale assessment across numerous authorities, submitting identical applications for the exact-same properties, with and without RSGB input, to the same case officer. It would be a very tough experiment to run, actually.
So, the question again turns, in my mind, to whether the RSGB is capable of change, when change requires an abandonment of the top-down, 'we know best' attitude that has undeniably and evidently dominated the society for a very long time. I also wonder how much attention the society is paying to the views of its new PR lady.
Time, as always, will tell. For now, so far as campaigning for better planning rules for hams is concerned, there's little doubt the RSGB is little short of useless.
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