From mike at saywell.net Sun Aug 18 16:47:14 2002 From: mike at saywell.net (Mike Saywell) Date: Sun Jan 19 18:23:49 2003 Subject: Community masts Message-ID: Hi, We're loooking at setting up a node in Southampton, one of the people involved has a Amateur License. If we understand correctly this means we can legally transmit at higher power and use higher gain antenna etc on some of the 802.11b channels. However, there are a few issues which we are not clear on regarding this! :-) Primarily is it legal for an Amateur to communicate with a non-amatuer? BR68 (see http://www.radio.gov.uk/publication/ra_info/br68r11/br68.htm) states that... "the licensee shall address messaes only to other licensed amateurs or the stations of licensed amateurs.. and send only signals (not enciphered) which form part of, or relate to, the tranmission of messages." There are numerous other potential issues which are obvious in the document, e.g. restrictions on what a message is, transmission of callsigns every 15 mins etc, are these restrictions relevant to 802.11b? Reading the FAQ on http://www.wlan.org.uk/wlan-faqs.html, item #8 mentions that... "2) The "Community Mast" licenced under Amateur Radio regulations can have a high gain omnidirectional antenna (at 20dBi) giving licence exempt users access up to a x 10 range magnification. 3) Directional narrow beam parabolic antennas (at 2.5 metres diameter!) used by licenced amateurs may have up to x 30 range magnification when connecting to licence exempt users." Can anybody confirm the correctness of that statement? They seem to contradict with the regulations concerning Amateur to non-Amateur comms which I mentioned earlier. The University here has a community mast which we could possibly make use of, however we want to be confident of the legality before doing anything! :) Thanks in advance, Mike Saywell From steve-consume at gbnet.net Sun Aug 18 17:12:26 2002 From: steve-consume at gbnet.net (Steve Kennedy) Date: Sun Jan 19 18:23:49 2003 Subject: [consume-legal] Community masts In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20020818151226.GC23465@ns.gbnet.net> On Sun, Aug 18, 2002 at 03:47:14PM +0100, Mike Saywell wrote: > We're loooking at setting up a node in Southampton, one of the people > involved has a Amateur License. If we understand correctly this means > we can legally transmit at higher power and use higher gain antenna etc > on some of the 802.11b channels. However, there are a few issues which > we are not clear on regarding this! :-) > Primarily is it legal for an Amateur to communicate with a non-amatuer? > BR68 (see http://www.radio.gov.uk/publication/ra_info/br68r11/br68.htm) > states that... You should probably speak to the RA directly. Also I dont believe the amateur band covers ALL of the 2.4GHz band, so you can only use some channels legally (but I may be wrong). Steve -- NetTek Ltd Flat 2, 43 Howitt Road, Belsize Park, London NW3 4LU, UK tel +44-(0)20 7483 1169 fax +44-(0)20 7483 2455 mob 07775 755503 SMS steve-pager (at) gbnet.net [body] gpg 1024D/468952DB 2001-09-19 From malcolm at kyzo.com Mon Aug 19 11:05:28 2002 From: malcolm at kyzo.com (Malcolm Cartledge) Date: Sun Jan 19 18:23:49 2003 Subject: [consume-legal] Community masts References: Message-ID: <3D60B4D8.CF280290@kyzo.com> My understanding is also as you quote from br68, but have you asked the RA for clarification on this? I would have thought they would be able to give you answers on the permissible use of an amateur license and the meaning of a "Community Mast" (interestingly there only seems to be one mention of "community" in br68). Less independently, you could pass the question to the wlan.org mailing list, or even one of their hams such as Henry O'Tani. malcolm C -- > We're loooking at setting up a node in Southampton, one of the people > involved has a Amateur License. If we understand correctly this means > we can legally transmit at higher power and use higher gain antenna etc > on some of the 802.11b channels. However, there are a few issues which > we are not clear on regarding this! :-) > > Primarily is it legal for an Amateur to communicate with a non-amatuer? > BR68 (see http://www.radio.gov.uk/publication/ra_info/br68r11/br68.htm) > states that... > > "the licensee shall address messaes only to other licensed amateurs or > the stations of licensed amateurs.. and send only signals (not enciphered) > which form part of, or relate to, the tranmission of messages." > > There are numerous other potential issues which are obvious in the > document, e.g. restrictions on what a message is, transmission of > callsigns every 15 mins etc, are these restrictions relevant to > 802.11b? > > Reading the FAQ on http://www.wlan.org.uk/wlan-faqs.html, item #8 > mentions that... > > "2) The "Community Mast" licenced under Amateur Radio regulations can > have a high gain omnidirectional antenna (at 20dBi) giving licence exempt > users access up to a x 10 range magnification. > > 3) Directional narrow beam parabolic antennas (at 2.5 metres > diameter!) used by licenced amateurs may have up to x 30 range > magnification when connecting to licence exempt users." > > Can anybody confirm the correctness of that statement? They seem to > contradict with the regulations concerning Amateur to non-Amateur comms > which I mentioned earlier. The University here has a community mast > which we could possibly make use of, however we want to be confident of > the legality before doing anything! :) > > Thanks in advance, > > Mike Saywell > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: consume-legal-unsubscribe@lists.consume.net > For additional commands, e-mail: consume-legal-help@lists.consume.net -- Malcolm -- KYZO Ltd . Little Streams . The Abbotsbrook . Bourne End . SL8 5QY . UK Tel: +44-(0)1628-526886 . Fax: +44-(0)1628-526030 . http://www.kyzo.com From malcolm at kyzo.com Mon Aug 19 11:08:41 2002 From: malcolm at kyzo.com (Malcolm Cartledge) Date: Sun Jan 19 18:23:49 2003 Subject: [consume-legal] Community masts References: <20020818151226.GC23465@ns.gbnet.net> Message-ID: <3D60B599.776CE5C8@kyzo.com> > > We're loooking at setting up a node in Southampton, one of the people > > involved has a Amateur License. If we understand correctly this means > > we can legally transmit at higher power and use higher gain antenna etc > > on some of the 802.11b channels. However, there are a few issues which > > we are not clear on regarding this! :-) > > Primarily is it legal for an Amateur to communicate with a non-amatuer? > > BR68 (see http://www.radio.gov.uk/publication/ra_info/br68r11/br68.htm) > > states that... > > You should probably speak to the RA directly. > > Also I dont believe the amateur band covers ALL of the 2.4GHz band, > so you can only use some channels legally (but I may be wrong). Just 2400-2450MHz, but up to 400W power. malcolm C From mike at saywell.net Mon Aug 19 12:06:32 2002 From: mike at saywell.net (Mike Saywell) Date: Sun Jan 19 18:23:49 2003 Subject: [consume-legal] Community masts In-Reply-To: <3D60B4D8.CF280290@kyzo.com> Message-ID: We havent asked the RA yet, but I guess this is probably the best way to get an accurate answer! I will also pass the question on to wlan.org.uk. Will keep you posted as to the results! :) Thanks, Mike On Mon, 19 Aug 2002, Malcolm Cartledge wrote: > > My understanding is also as you quote from br68, but have you asked the > RA for clarification on this? I would have thought they would be able to > give you answers on the permissible use of an amateur license and the > meaning of a "Community Mast" (interestingly there only seems to be one > mention of "community" in br68). > > Less independently, you could pass the question to the wlan.org mailing > list, or even one of their hams such as Henry O'Tani. > > > malcolm C > > --