The Written & the Unwritten Rules!

A lot of people claim never to have seen a BR68 booklet, but all licenced amateurs have one, in fact we get one every year with our licence renewal. It is that A5 sized blue and white book. In case you still don’t know what is in the BR68, CLICK HERE, to read it.

The Written Rules

Sadly, the BR68 booklet is written in gobbledygook, so nobody bothers to read it. This is a great pity as many of the conventions deemed to be acceptable are in fact contraventions of the rules. I will point out one simple example, but rest assured, there are dozens of similar instances of common practice not being in compliance with the written rules.

EXAMPLE

You call a colleague, and after making contact you agree to go to a specific frequency. When you get there, you hear a voice that says “This frequency is in use” What do you do? If you say “Sorry old man, we’ll take it up another 25KHz”, you have committed an offence. The voice telling you that the frequency is in use is an unlicenced station as he has not given his call sign at the commencement of the transmission and he has not made prior contact with you and you have not yet exchanged call-signs. You are not permitted to communicate with unlicenced stations, so you must ignore this voice and continue with your communication. Unless, or until the station claiming that the frequency is in use makes contact and exchanges call-signs, you are NOT permitted to legally reply. Actually, if you follow the BR68, when you change frequencies, you should close your station on the calling frequency and give the call sign, then re-establish it on your chosen frequency, again giving the call sign. Notice we use the term frequency as opposed to channel, there are NO channels on amateur radio, and no frequencies reserved for specific uses. Nobody appears to understand that ALL of the rules and regulations have equal and similar standing, there is a distinct view that some contraventions are more serious than others, ask any lawyer, they are not.

Twilight Zone

Briefly, there is also the twilight zone of “Unwritten Rules”. At a recent court hearing, a radio amateur faced several charges arising from alleged misuse of his licence, twice during the trial, the Judge had to stop the hearing to remind R.I.S. witnesses to stop references to “unwritten rules” and he also had to point out to the jury that the court was only concerned with written rules! The problem is that most radio amateurs knew a radio amateur before studying for their licence, and the “rules” are passed down with little or no reference to the BR68. Thus, new hams are brainwashed or indoctrinated prior to receiving their licences, and the myths are passed on. Witness the way new "M" prefix hams have had the ridiculous term Hi Hi passed down to them, and use it instead of Ha Ha, not only in packet radio messages [which is stupid enough as all characters are the same length], but also in voice messages. For those of you who are not aware of this "abbreviation", it is used in Morse code as the i takes less keystrokes than a.

It is only the relatively small number of “outsiders” passing the RAE, that ever read the BR68, and take notice, but unfortunately they soon drift off into the accepted operating procedures. For reasons that escape us, many radio amateurs believe The Radio Society of Great Britain Limited to have some sort of say in operating practice, procedure, and legislation. The company publishes books and magazines and has no more standing in the amateur radio world than the R.A.C. or The AA has in the motoring world. For some strange reason, even when faced with the facts, some people will not accept that R.S.G.B.Ltd. is a company, any doubters can send for the latest accounts from Companies House. For reasons best known to the UK Government and the D.T.I., The Secretary of State for Trade & Industry, allows R.S.G.B.Ltd. to drop the legal requirement for the term Limited to appear after the company name in all but it’s headed notepaper. You figure it! It only seems to perpetuate the myth that the company is some sort of official body.

Extreme Feelings

Why does amateur radio bring out these extreme feelings in otherwise normal people? That is a good question, imagine if you will, driving your car down the road at say 40 Mph in a 30 Mph limit, you notice that you are being followed as you go to the Newsagents and stop briefly on double yellow lines to buy a newspaper. On the way home you notice the same car following you, and later you get a knock at your door, it is a group of men from the local car club who have come to threaten you for exceeding the speed limit and parking on yellow lines. You tell them to clear off and mind their own business. From that day on, you are followed everywhere and start receiving threatening phone calls at all hours of the night and early hours of the morning. A week or so later, a brick with a note attached to it comes through your living room window telling you to observe the speed limit OR ELSE. A few days later you awake to find that your car has been paint strippered, and you get more phone calls warning you that something else may happen if you don’t drive at 30 Mph in future. Well, this never happens in the real world, members of a car club couldn’t be less concerned about the way you drive, but imagine that this was a radio amateur club and your were a radio amateur. The situation has occurred!

It wouldn’t be so bad if these people actually read and understood the rules themselves, sadly, there is a culture of only adhering to certain rules and completely ignoring others.

Just who is Sensible?

A typical tactic of the “sensible” fraternity is to KEY OVER anyone operating in a strange voice or playing music. This is just as illegal as the material they try to obliterate, possibly more so. Firstly, it is a requirement to give the call sign of the station during an initial call, it is an offence to cause deliberate interference, and a general transmission is also banned. By transmitting over an airwave abuser they commit at least 3 offences, and possibly 4 as there is also a requirement to write-up transmissions in a log book, they are hardly likely to enter the date & time of their illegal jamming transmission are they? At this point the status of the abuser and the “sensible” radio ham start to merge, and it is hard to distinguish which is the stupid one!

Trial Of George G1MTT

This page Written & Unwritten Rules, was prompted by the constant reference to "Unwritten Rules" in the trial of George G1MTT. Several times during evidence, the Judge had to intervene to remind DTI's witnesses that the Court was only concerned with Written Rules, possibly, had this been understood fully by The RIS during the investigation, the prosecution may have never taken place, or, completely different charges may have been made against station G1MTT.