Roamer.com » licence http://www.roamer.com Tech, Business & Life Thu, 06 Aug 2009 16:19:13 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 I’ve got my Amateur Radio Licence – Finally :-) http://www.roamer.com/2007/10/19/ive-got-my-amateur-radio-licence-finally/ http://www.roamer.com/2007/10/19/ive-got-my-amateur-radio-licence-finally/#comments Fri, 19 Oct 2007 22:07:31 +0000 Roamer http://roamer.com/2007/10/19/ive-got-my-amateur-radio-licence-finally/ Yes, I can’t quite believe it but, after my call to OfCom yesterday, and then an email off to the RSGB as well, I got a reply telling me that they had just done the detail transfer over to OfCom and that if I retried they were sure I’d be successful this time.

So, . . . → Read More: I’ve got my Amateur Radio Licence – Finally :-)]]> Yes, I can’t quite believe it but, after my call to OfCom yesterday, and then an email off to the RSGB as well, I got a reply telling me that they had just done the detail transfer over to OfCom and that if I retried they were sure I’d be successful this time.

So, I logged on to the online licencing system, and miracle of miracles – I was able to proceed with my foundation licence application, but then onto my next problem – the callsign.

As this is only my foundation licence and I will be progressing as quickly as possible through the intermediate to the advance licence I shouldn’t have taken as much time as I did over choosing a callsign – but then, thats just me I guess.  After an hour on the phone to a G7 mate of mine I finally decided upon M3VAO, which reads nicely both normally and phonetically.

So there we go, now I’ve got the licence I can start testing out some of my HF antenna designs and start having some fun talking through the local repeaters whilst out and about.

Superb, only 1 year and 2 weeks after starting the course (LoL I dare someone to ask why it’s taken sooo long) I’m finally licenced – WHOOOP! :-)

-Roamer.

]]> http://www.roamer.com/2007/10/19/ive-got-my-amateur-radio-licence-finally/feed/ 0 I’ve got my Amateur Radio Licence – close but no cigar :-( http://www.roamer.com/2007/10/18/ive-got-my-amateur-radio-licence-close-but-no-cigar/ http://www.roamer.com/2007/10/18/ive-got-my-amateur-radio-licence-close-but-no-cigar/#comments Thu, 18 Oct 2007 11:46:52 +0000 Roamer http://roamer.com/2007/10/18/ive-got-my-amateur-radio-licence-close-but-no-cigar/ Well, after being a little bit hacked off this morning I decided to contact OfCom to see if there were any problems with my application and/or my candidate number, and to my suprise I got hold of a very helpful bloke who said that all was ok and we started going through my choices . . . → Read More: I’ve got my Amateur Radio Licence – close but no cigar :-(]]> Well, after being a little bit hacked off this morning I decided to contact OfCom to see if there were any problems with my application and/or my candidate number, and to my suprise I got hold of a very helpful bloke who said that all was ok and we started going through my choices of callsigns. Fantastic I thought… although after alot of different callsign ideas – which all turned out to be already allocated – I was getting a bit despondent about the whole thing, then we tried a random one and it sounded ok, tripped off the tough quite easily and so I said yes to it. He told me to give it 15 mins so that he could sort it out on the systems his end, and that then I should be able to log into the online licence system and see my new licence there.

Oh how happy I was – for about 2 minutes.

The phone rang, and yes it was the guy from OfCom, telling me that they hadn’t infact had the data pushed through from the RSGB yet, and so that callsign wasn’t yet allocated to me, and that I should simply keep trying online, maybe this afternoon, or tomorrow, or possibly over the weekend, or maybe the start of next week. Bugger, yet again, I almost was licenced, but now I’m back to waiting, and my patience isn’t holding up well at this point, I mean, OfCom have spent loads to create this great online licencing system, but when it comes to an organisation feeding into this it seems that simply time isn’t of the essence.

I’ll try and be patient once again.

]]> http://www.roamer.com/2007/10/18/ive-got-my-amateur-radio-licence-close-but-no-cigar/feed/ 0 Oh when will I get my radio licence? http://www.roamer.com/2007/10/17/oh-when-will-i-get-my-radio-licence/ http://www.roamer.com/2007/10/17/oh-when-will-i-get-my-radio-licence/#comments Wed, 17 Oct 2007 20:43:53 +0000 Roamer http://roamer.com/2007/10/17/oh-when-will-i-get-my-radio-licence/ This is the question I’ve been asking myself and others since Thursday when I passed my Foundation Amateur Radio exam.

The process is apparently as follows – On the night we took the exam the papers were marked and we got our results, then the papers were sent by post to the RSGB (The . . . → Read More: Oh when will I get my radio licence?]]> This is the question I’ve been asking myself and others since Thursday when I passed my Foundation Amateur Radio exam.

The process is apparently as follows – On the night we took the exam the papers were marked and we got our results, then the papers were sent by post to the RSGB (The Radio Society of Great Britain), the RSGB then check and process the papers and tell OfCom (The body who looks after radio communications within the UK). OfCom then updates their systems and I should be able to then simply type my RSGB candidate number into the online lifetime licence system and hay presto! I should have a licence.

Now I do say should, but this system seems to not be working as well as expected, now some may say it’s simply down to the postal strikes, but I have read on a few sites around the place where people recently have passed on a saturday and got their licence and callsign by the following Tuesday – DURING the postal strikes – so whats happening now? I haven’t got a clue, but I recon that it’s just yet another thing that for no real reason is going wrong just for me LoL – either that or the RSGB are on a go-slow for exam candidates who aren’t also RSGB members (Membership currently is £44 – for what exactly?) – but that’s sounding too much like a conspiracy theory LoL.

Anyway, I will wait as patiently as I ever can, and keep trying the OfCom online system a couple of times a day until it works.

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