OFCOM is not your friend.

The fallout from the new licence conditions concerning RF safety compliance continues.

Over past days, I've been reviewing the consultation documents that ran some time ago now. 

I was a surprised to find that the RSGB had, eventually, found it "impossible to support" the proposed new rules as they were presented.  This seems to have been a volte-face, because when news of all this first surfaced, the relevant RSGB representative gave a very firm impression of being fully behind it all.  The reason for this U-turn would appear to have been the outbreak of widespread dissent amongst the membership.  

Not that it mattered, because OFCOM went ahead anyway.

More worrying to me was the manner in which OFCOM started to engage in the kind of explicit disdain for public input and process that now characterises much of the current right-wing UK government machine.  

Entirely legitimately, and as is very common practice, the RSGB had issued standard response forms that members could either simply put their names to and send to OFCOM, or else use as a starting point for their own, perhaps more individual submission.  It was, after all, a complex area where the RSGB could and should have been expected to help members understand the background and make their views known.

OFCOM, to my mind very distastefully and in a manner unbecoming of a body that should have some sort of respect for the public and spectrum users, decided to go to town on all this 'copy and paste' protesting.  They "note" how many objections were submitted using the RSGB form, suggesting that this made them in some way illegitimate.

Now, if someone handed you a form about overthrowing the government in the street, and asked you to put your name on it, you would expect that, in very short order, to be used as evidence against you by the authorities.  They wouldn't turn around and say "oh, your name's only appeared on a standard form, so it doesn't matter - you are free to go".  

No, OFCOM, the world is not like that.  If someone uses a template or other standard form to make their voice heard, then it is the fact that they are making a representation, and not precisely how, that is important.

This story is not over.  I still haven't seen a single piece of peer-reviewed work that indicates there actually is a demonstrated risk to health from the frequencies and powers typically used by amateur operators.  And I have tried everything in the book - including statutory requests to OFCOM, Public Health England and a plea for information from ICNIRP itself.  

I'm still prodding these people to explain on what basis - other than what they accept was now concern about social media-promoted public hysteria about 5G - all this was dumped on the amateur radio community, who, again by OFCOM's own admission, have never been shown to breach any EMF safety limits.

Moreover, I still can't find a reasoned justification from ICNIRP as to why they deem 'HF' to mean 100kHz to 3GHz, whilst everybody else, including a 2012 Public Health Agency report, defines it as being 3MHz - 30MHz.

And, sadly, the more you look, the more it is confirmed that supposedly informed organiations like OFCOM and WHO have been simply jumping to the tune of the ignorant, hysterical public, who share their idiotic ideas online as though that makes them legitimate.  Almost all WHO information about EMF safety falls under 'mobile phones'.  We are not mobile phone operators.

We have been thrown under the bus, and OFCOM should not be allowed to get away with any more of this nonsense.  As the RSGB itself writes, in failing to identify any known breaches of ICNIRP guidelines (noting they are guidelines, not law), OFCOM appears to have broken the law in introducing these controls.  That kind of failure to adhere to legal requirements is, again, very much in the spirit and manner of the Boris Johnson government.