An OFCOM 'Fudge' and an RSGB Win

After a year of making a mess of things, OFCOM, the UK communications regulator, has reached its final decision on the use of a permanent regional locator for Cornwall.

A Cornish fudge, made by OFCOM and the RSGB.  Can be difficult to digest.

The basic outcome is that, having changed its position a couple of times since last summer, OFCOM is only allowing a temporary RSL to be used - which has a maximum duration of one year.

The decision letter can be found here.

This will undoubtedly be seen by those running the RSGB as a success story.  Having supported OFCOM objections from the outset, and made several of its own, the RSGB has prevailed in preventing a new, permanent RSL for Cornwall.  This is despite the official National Minority Status granted to Cornwall by none other than the UK government.

Personally, I think this highlights three things:

(1) The RSGB used the argument that its members had not been consulted throughout this debacle.  Despite that, it supported initial OFCOM objections and put forward its own objections.  You will note OFCOM say, very clearly, that the RGSB "challenged" their decision to award a permanent RSL. So, there is now no ambiguity that the RSGB did, contrary to its own statements to this blog, object to the concept. Lack of consultation was never a bar to the RSGB in objecting.  It is reasonable to ask whether, therefore, the RSGB is properly accountable and democratic.  The society has even told me that they pick and choose what they consult on.  That may be constitutionally valid, but it isn't properly democratic.

(2) There has been a clear assertion by the RSGB that "Cornwall is an integral part of England".  This fails to have regard for the National Minority Status.  It also has no regard for the particular Celtic history of the area, and for most people interested in the story, would be seen as insulting, bordering on intolerance.

(3) OFCOM ought to lose all sense of credibility.  It first objected and refused the RSL (within five days).  Then it supported the RSL, writing to all Cornish MPs in that vein, and issuing an offer letter to Poldhu in September 2014.  Then it changed its mind, retracting the offer, folding under 'pressure', such as it was, from what appears to have been a very few bigwigs within the RSGB. Its final outcome is nothing other than an all-too-typical political fudge, where it can claim to have both supported Cornwall and the RSGB.  Ironically, some of the best, edible fudge is found in Cornwall, which I encourage you to buy.

The RSGB has, merely by stating a never-specified number of people complained to it, managed to both get OFCOM to make a u-turn upon a u-turn, and a complete fool of itself.

Is it really that difficult and time-consuming for OFCOM to formulate a rule - currently absent - that specifies how RSLs are awarded?  Here's my stab at it, in real time: "Permanent RSLs are available only to those regions within the UK designated as having National Minority Status, or where the historical narrative is so unambiguous as to have effectively granted the same."  The rubbish about everybody jumping on the bandwagon was always a red herring, and both OFCOM and the RSGB know it.

Unlike that left by real Cornish fudge, this episode leaves a bad taste in the mouth.  It yet again raises questions about the way in which the RSGB is run, and for what purpose.

Given that the RSGB only really provides what I find to be a rather poor magazine in return for the membership fee, and that it acts in the way this nonsense has shown, I really will be pulling the plug and terminating my membership this week.

The only positive thing in this debacle is that OFCOM identify the first use of RSLs as dating back to the 1950s.  As I pointed out in an earlier post, this demolishes the ridiculous view put forward by the RSGB that RSLs were limited to those parts of the UK which had their own governments and laws (which date back less than 20 years.)

Oh, and one more thing about OFCOM is that, in claiming it has no mandate to award RSLs, it doesn't explain why radio licensing custom and practice, unlike other areas of law,  is not used as a means of establishing how things go on in the future.  Indeed, if OFCOM doesn't have this competence, how could it recently award a 'C' RSL for Wales as a politically-correct sop to bilingualism in that nation (of which I am, incidentally, a welsh-speaking part), when it has, up until then, been firmly an Anglo-centric 'W'?

I haven't asked the RSGB the tricky question as to whether it now welcomes or decries the refusal to award a permanent RSL for Cornwall.  Whatever it says, I'm really not interested; the best you can do in cases like this is refuse to recognise those who claim to represent the radio community.

And for an example of the kind of childish invective out there amongst hams themselves, here is an extract from the Chiltern DX Club forum, which really does it little service at all: