NEW EMF Safety Rules (UK ONLY)

 

After a consultation last year, OFCOM, the UK regulator has introduced, as it was always obvious it intended to do, limitations on all UK amateur licences that require EMF safety limits to be observed at all times, but only in relation to anyone who is not the operator.  You can fry youself as much as you like, but neighbours and the like are all to be protected.  This guidance assists understanding.

I was never a fan of this idea, which was set in motion as a direct result of irrational public panic about 5G systems, as I set out last year.  Of course, 5G has nothing to do with the amateur service at all, but OFCOM would have no such rationality brought to the table.

Despite extensive formal requests from all the various parties involved in bringing this forward, including OFCOM, Public Health England, ICNIRP itself (who never responded at all), and the RSGB, absolutely no scientific evidence has been provided by any of them to support the notion that typical amateur frequencies and powers present a health hazard.   

The RSGB claimed there was such evidence (but never provided references to it), and supported OFCOM's moves.

It's quite something when a regulatory body says there may be a danger, yet cannot point to a single piece of proper, peer-reviewed scientific evidence to back up the introduction of their new rules.

In addition, ICNIRP has been heavily criticised as being an unaccountable advisory body that, it is further alleged, has serious conflicts of interest.  Little wonder that those who have scrutinised ICNIRP have asserted the European Commission should stop supporting it.

Be that as it may, I'm glad that OFCOM have, at least, taken on board my observations that amateurs are never trained to undertake such complex assessments as are now being demanded of them and do not possess, nor are ever likely to possess, the required, calibrated analysis equipment to do so.

In that regard, OFCOM have created a calculator so that one only needs to enter EIRP, duty cycle and frequency to obtain a 'safe' separation distance.  I'm not persusaded yet that the calculator is actually as easy to use as it is portrayed - many 'guesstimates' have to be made - nor that the output presents meaningful results.  Not that I accept there is a demonstrated risk, anyway.  But quite who OFCOM imagine a 'professional installer' in the field of amateur radio is, well, anybody's guess.  Clearly, there is no such person in practice, and it remains a mystery why this term has been included in the rules.

So there you are.  More regulation of, and infinitely less representation for, amateur operators in the UK.  I suppose the only good side is that, when neighbours claim that certain installations represent a danger to health, we will now be able to demonstrate that they do not.  Either that, or the output will show there is supposed to be a danger (though there is no scientific evidence to demonstrate what this danger is), and the installation cannot proceed!  

In practice, will anybody take any of this seriously?  I rather doubt it.  If someone ever brings a case to court, it must surely be that the lack of scientific evidence for harm would work very much against OFCOM, particularly as they have admitted to me in correspondence that it was all motivated by the 5G rollout.

For what it's worth (OFCOM will 'log and ignore'), and as an idea for when (if) you want to make a representation about all this when invited, this is what I submitted to OFCOM on their announcement:

"I consider the online calculator to be inadequate.   It appears to assume that the exposure is to a fixed, static absorber (e.g. a neighbour), but makes no adjustment for the common situation where the general public referred to in these rules are incidental to the transmitter location (e.g. a specific person passing transiently along a path/road).

There is also no provision for absorption by structures (e.g. a house), which would otherwise dramatically reduce the safe minimum distance.  

I also highlight again the failure of OFCOM, PHE, ICNIRP and the RSGB to advance (under statutory requests in the case of the first two bodies) any citations of peer-reviewed research that demonstrates a risk, or likely risk, at HF/lower VHF frequencies, and that this imposition by OFCOM is arbitrary and irrational."