Well-meaning, but is it lawful?

Occasionally, I have a look at the RSGB's website.  This morning, I had a look to see if they were doing very much about World Amateur Radio Day, and/or the role of radio in reducing social isolation.

In fairness, the RSGB is doing something, though I have yet to see anything about amateur radio on the mainstream media outlets, despite there supposedly being a press officer being employed by them.

But what struck me as a bit odd was the callsign displayed in the following image, proudly displayed in the vein of support for the 'heroic NHS' on the RSGB's site, showing an unusual callsign being used actively on JS8 Call:

Image: via RSGB web site, accessed 08:40UT, 2020 April 18.

The rules over callsign extensions in the UK are not especially clear.  For a start, the rules on this are merely 'recommendations', not legal directives.  They appear only in the Notes to the licence, and the primary legislation makes no mention of such things.

But in general, extensions after a main call are normally only used to indicate a location other than the licenced address - /P, /M, /A etc.  Things like /MM and /AM are occasionally seen, and also generally accepted (and indeed recommended by OFCOM) as providing useful information about the operation's circumstances.

So, being recommendations, I suppose you could say that the /NHS extension is not unlawful or wrong in any strict sense.

In fact, someone helpfully - or perhaps worryingly - referred me to this page, which announces 'OFCOM is happy' to allow /NHS to be used.  This would seem to be ad hoc lawmaking, of the kind certain Police authorities have engaged in recently.  Or maybe just confirmation that there are no enforceable rules about extensions.  Or maybe that OFCOM don't enforce any rules.  For sure, OFCOM would never be seen to act against any support for the NHS at the moment, even if it had been unlawful.

But all this is certainly out of keeping with the general way in which special callsigns are allocated by convention (and law) in the UK - the use of the (free and automated) Notice of Variation (NoV) of the licence.


And, despite the global rules of the ITU, IARU and the like, Cyprus doesn't seem to have a problem with this health message mouthful, seen on 15m today:

Anyway, virtue signalling has become something of a popular pastime in the UK at the moment.  Anything that might look like criticism of, or less-than-next-door's support levels for the NHS is instantly jumped upon as evidence of being 'un-British' and a traitor.  Ho hum...