On 11/01/13 21:15, Joe Leikhim wrote:
Thanks; For some reason, I thought 70CM Repeaters were unavailable in UK, and my W32A might be "contraband". Yes the W32A can work 420-450
Incidentally, in the UK you are allowed to have any kind of transmitter for any band you like, whether you are licensed or not. You're not allowed to transmit with it, though.
You're also allowed to receive anything, but under the WT Act you may not be able to act on or pass on any information that you receive. So, sitting in the house listening to the last few remaining FM fire brigade radios is fine, phoning the local paper or hopping in the car to go for a look is right out ;-)
There's another interesting aspect of this that pops up on aviation enthusiast mailing lists and forums, where you get people posting stuff along the lines of "ZOMG THE UK HAS DRACONIAN LAWS AND IT'S A POLICE STATE BECAUSE YOU CAN'T STREAM SCANNERS LISTENING TO AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL!!11!!!!11111"
Well, the law says you can't pass on any information without permission, which suggests to me that if you obtain permission from NATS to stream local ATC chatter, then it will be fine. I asked NATS about that at a visit to their control centre near me, and they said that in principle they don't really care what you do, to satisfy the letter of the law you'd need to ask permission, and no-one has ever contacted them to ask permission to stream ATC traffic.
So there you go - you don't ask, you don't get.