Table of Contents
UK Amateur Radio Licence Archive
21 Feb 2024
Amateur Radio Wireless Telegraphy Licence Conditions Booklet OFW611
Notice of Coordination Procedures
General notice of decision to vary amateur radio licences
Harmonised Amateur Radio Examination Certificate (HAREC) issued 2024
2021
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- Addition of Section 3 - Conditions relating to Electromagnetic Fields (EMF) Compliance
2018
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- This contains only minor edits e.g. RSGB website URL replaced the reference to the 2007 RSGB Yearbook
- Significantly it does not incorporate any of the 2015 licence changes, e.g. addition of 472 kHz band and 5 MHz segments
- This Interface Requirement is still current at the time of writing, June 2025, however, none of the 2015 or 2024 licence changes have yet been included e.g. Foundation power level and additional bands
2017
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- Sample Notice of Variation permitting broadcasting of RSGB news bulletins using the callsign GB2RS
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- Changes included:
- Addition of clause 1.19 signifying that Callsigns were no longer transferable. Transfer of callsigns had stopped in 2016
- Clauses 2.2 and 2.3 combined into a single clause
2016
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- These policy changes were introduced:
- Licence and Terms & Conditions now separate documents
- The # symbol used to represent the RSL in the callsign in section 1 of the licence document, Guidance clause 1.12
- Callsigns no longer transferable, Guidance clause 1.19
2015
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- The key changes to the licence were
- Removal of the 2350-2390 MHz and 3410-3475 MHz allocations
- Foundation and Intermediate were permitted to operate on vessels within UK and Crown Dependency Territorial Waters (12 mile limit) although licence wording still wasn't clear. Ofcom's Spectrum Policy Manager Fraser Murrey issued this clarification which implied this had been the case since 2006:
See clause 2.14/2.15 of April 2016 Ofcom Licence Guidance Document and 2015 UK Territorial Seas and Internal Waters Map - Mandatory 15 minute Identification requirement scrapped, no longer have to ID every 15 minutes or when changing frequency. It became the responsibility of the licence holder to determine when to identify
- Ofcom had wished to take advantage of this licence update to correct the error in the December 2006 licence that meant amateurs must use the Main Station callsign with Main Station RSL when visiting other regions within the UK&CD. Ofcom's proposed change meant amateurs would be able to use either the Core UK callsign (no RSL) or use an appropriate RSL when visiting other UK&CD regions. This provoked an outcry (see https://web.archive.org/web/20240812092839/https://www.ofcom.org.uk/spectrum/radio-equipment/amateur-radio-licence/) so Ofcom decided not to correct it in this update. The error wasn't corrected until the 21 February 2024 licence
2007
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- Licence came into effect 1 January 2007 with this amendment:
- 75500-75875 MHz status changed from Primary to Secondary
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- The changes covered:
- Inclusion of Foundation allocations and power levels
- Removal of obsolete licence references
- Section 2 Forward changed to say “this UK Interface Requirement contains the requirements for the licensing and use of Amateur Radio in the specified frequency bands.” It is worth noting IR 2028 describes how the complete station as a whole should be operated (Table 3.1 Mandatory Elements (1-9)), it is not a specification that individual items of equipment must meet. Foundation had a licence requirement, clause 7(2) to “satisfy IR 2028”. kits or transceivers capable of 100 watts output or that also covered frequencies outside the permitted Foundation bands could be used as long as they were operated in accordance with the Foundation licence conditions e.g. power turned down to 10 watts.
2006
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- The Lifetime Licence issued 1 December 2006 contained these additional changes to the licence format announcement made on 4 July 2006:
- Foundation permitted to use:
- Amateur Satellites
- 10 GHz band
- Wireless remote control of their station using a 500 mW ERP control link within a Foundation amateur band above 30 MHz
- Intermediate permitted 500 mW ERP wireless remote control
- Full holders would see the scrapping of the planned 100 metre restriction on wireless remote control
- Club licences were permitted to continue using the special Club regional secondary locators (RSL) even though the original reason for having them, enabling an unlicenced person to send a greetings message, no longer applied
- This licence permitted Foundation and Intermediate to operate on a vessel sailing in UK Internal Waters e.g. the Bristol Channel, the Solent and the Thames Estuary out to a line drawn from North Foreland, Margate, Kent via the Kentish Knock lighthouse to Harwich in Essex. That “Internal Waters” and “Inland Waters” were the same was not immediately apparent to some amateurs and led to Ofcom issuing a subsequent clarification. UK Internal Waters are clearly shown on this Admiralty map. The Maritime and Coastal Agency used the term Inland Waters for the same waters and in 2006 they detailed them here (select View the Full List). It's clear some amateurs were not aware just how far from shore some Inland/Internal waters could extend
- Due to the incorporation of these last minute changes the originally planned Lifetime licence issue date of 1 October 2006 was deferred to 1 December 2006. All licences due for renewal in October and November were automatically issued the appropriate version (Fnd/Int/Full) of the BR68 licence free of charge. It is believed new licence applications were also free
- An unintended consequence of a wording change (the removal of the previous BR68 clause 7(5)) meant the Main Station Address callsign complete with Main Station RSL e.g. MW0ABC, must be used when visiting another region within the UK and Crown Dependencies. This was not noticed until 2013. A statement on the matter was given by Ofcom's Paul Jarvis G8RMM at the National Hamfest on 27 September 2013 and the RSGB Convention on 12 October 2013:
https://web.archive.org/web/20150928061916/http://rsgb.org/main/archive/consultation-archive/ofcom-consultations/licence-review-preparation/regional-secondary-locator/ - Among the errors in this licence were:
- Clause 17(1)(d) defined all occurrences of the word “Amateur” (with initial capital) in the licence to mean a holder of a United Kingdom Amateur Radio Licence. In consequence Clause 11 meant UK amateurs could only establish contact with other UK amateurs not those authorised by other countries. Ofcom did not correct this error until the licence issued 24 February 2024
- The licence referred throughout to the United Kingdom which breached UK Ministry of Justice instructions that: “Government officials must never state or imply that the Crown Dependencies are part of the United Kingdom, or Great Britain or England or act on that assumption.” Ofcom did not correct this error until the licence issued 18 May 2021 when they adopted the correct term “United Kingdom and Crown Dependencies” (the term “British Islands” defined in the Interpretation Act 1978 means the same thing)
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- The lifetime licence was published on 4 July 2006 although significant changes would be made before it was finally issued. The principle changes announced in July over the previous BR68/F, BR68/I and BR68 licences were:
- Combining the three separate licence terms and conditions into one document
- Gender neutral language, previous licences had assumed the holder was male
- Technology neutral, any mode with any bandwidth was permitted as long as the transmission was contained within an amateur band
- The requirement to ID data transmissions by morse telegraphy or telephony, at the end of each 30 minute period during which transmissions are sent from the Station (BR68 clause 7(1)(f)) was scrapped
- Content restrictions were relaxed, the prohibitions on music and political or religious discussion were scrapped.
- Requirement to keep a log book abolished
- Suffixes /P, /M, /MM became optional and an optional /A was added
- Foundation were:
- Permitted to use 28 MHz band
- No longer had to use CE approved transmitting equipment. Instead kit or ready-built transmitters just had to be operated in a way that satisfied IR-2028. The situation for Foundation kit built transmitters remained essentially the same, there had never been any compliancy requirements for kits neither had there been any definition on what comprised a kit, which allowed considerable flexibility e.g. a bare PCB and a circuit diagram could constitute a kit. Transmitting equipment capable of operating in non-amateur bands was permitted as long as no transmissions were made out of authorised amateur bands. There were no power restrictions on the transmitting equipment that could be built, a Foundation holder was permited to build a 100 watt transceiver but they would have to turn the power down to what in 2006 was 10 watts to be able to use it on-air
- Full were permitted to supervise an unlicenced person on-air. Previously only Club stations using the special Club RSL had been permitted to do this. This meant the special Club RSL's no longer served any purpose but some clubs had become attached to them so Club RSL's remained
- The licence was free and lifetime, annual renewals were no longer required
- This version of the lifetime licence didn't go as far as some amateurs wanted and still contained a number of unnecessary restrictions. This summary of the issues with the new licence was posted on the daily Southgate Amateur Radio News Service site on 5 July 2006:
- Although planned to start from 1 October 2006 this version of the licence was never issued to anyone. Significant last-minute changes were made that addressed some of the issues raised in the Southgate post
2005
- On 26 May 2005 Ofcom published a 'Consultation on a proposal to reform amateur radio licensing - A lighter, electronic licensing process' which aimed to improve the licensing process, modernise the amateur licence and reduce unnecessary bureaucratic regulations. The reform process was led by Ofcom's Steve Roper CEng FIET, a licenced radio amateur, G8MXZ, who had specialised in radio systems engineering and radio wave propagation at the Universiy of Bath. The consultation was open until 18 August 2005
- From the outset the RSGB were opposed to the modernisation proposals and encouraged their members to respond to Ofcom consultation to voice their objections. The RSGB stated a Licence for Life was “inherently dangerous” May 2005 RadCom page 7, they even went so far as to place full page adverts in radio magazines like Practical Wireless and Short Wave Magazine declaring that a Licence for Life would mean the end of amateur radio in 5 years
- In addition to the consultation process, on 26 May 2005, MORI sent a questionnaire and accompanying material to 4,500 amateur radio licence holders. The survey sought licensees' views on Ofcom's proposals and also gathered other information such as membership of societies. MORI received 1,572 completed questionnaires by the closing date of 20 June 2005 - 26 October 2005 MORI Report on Amateur Radio Licensing
- The consultation document and the ~1,466 responses are available at https://web.archive.org/web/20050729085019/http://www.ofcom.org.uk/consult/condocs/aradio/
- The Amateur radio licensing - Policy Statement was published on 14 February 2006
2004
Up until 2004 the Radio Licensing Centre in Bristol, part of Royal Mail's specialist customer management unit, were contracted to provided licensing services.
The 15 person team handled around 8000 applications, renewals and queries every month regarding Amateur Radio and Citizens' Band Radio.
The RLC made available the latest sequentially issued Amateur and CB callsigns on their web site.
On 24 February 2004 the latest callsigns issued were:
- Amateur Full: M0DPX
- Amateur Intermediate: 2E0AWG
- Amateur Foundation: M3FSY
- CB: 2G1SA
2003
- Notices of Variation (NoV) all issued in July 2003
- The changes were:
- Morse requirement for operation below 30 MHz was removed from Full and Intermediate BR68's
- Intermediate holders were permitted to use Amateur Satellites. Note: Some Intermediate holders had been using Amateur Satellites since 21 June 1999 when they were allocated the 144 MHz band. Nothing in BR68i stated Amateur Satellite operation wasn't permitted so it had been widely assumed they could
- Full and Intermediate allocation at 75500-75875 MHz planned to change to Secondary status from 31 December 2006
- It is believed revised BR68's incorporating these changes were printed but there is no record of PDF's of them being made available on the Ofcom site
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- These changes were proposed:
- remove Morse requirement
- give Intermediate holders access to Amateur Satellites
- change part of 75 GHz band from Primary to Secondary from 31 December 2006
2002
2001
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- BR68/I was issued from 1 October 2001. The previous BR68a/N and BR68b/N Novice licence documents were combined into a single booklet and renamed as Intermediate
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- BR68/F was first used in the Foundation Pilot Scheme which started in October 2001. The Foundation Pilot Scheme training course was held at the RSGB Potters Bar HQ, did candidates have to wait until 1 January 2002 for their licence?
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- Note this document references obsolete licence classes e.g. Class A/B & Novice, Notification number reads “to be added” and Foundation isn't mentioned. Despite that it was made publicly available on the RA's radio.gov.uk site and the Ofcom site in 2004-6
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- On 1 October 2001 Class A/B ('M5' Prefix calls) became Class A following reduction of Class A Morse requirement to 5 WPM. On 6 November 2001 the RA offered them 'M0' callsigns
2000
- 17 August 2000 - Abolition of the requirement to be 14 or over or to have held a Novice licence for at least year before you were permitted to apply for a Full Class A or B licence External Link
1999
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- Class A/B licence available from 2 August 1999
- Callsign prefix 'M5'
- Required a pass in the City and Guilds Radio Amateurs Exam and a 5 WPM Morse test given by RSGB volunteers
- Permitted 100 watts output on all HF bands and 400 watts on bands above 30 MHz
- Reservation for M5AAA-M5AZZ callsigns were accepted from 15 June 1999
1995
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- Permitted the sending of Greetings Messages by unlicenced persons using a Club licenced station. Messages could only be sent the amateurs in the UK and Crown Dependencies, United States of America, Canada, Falkland Islands and Pitcairn Island. A person could only send one message which was limited to a maximum of 2 minutes duration
- Club licence stations were allocated unique RSL's for the purpose of identifying transmission of greetings messages
1990
1989
1985
- April 1, 1985, UK Class B amateurs were permitted to use CW on 144 MHz and above without the need to pass a Morse test if they applied for a letter of authorisation
- The then editor of Short Wave Magazine Paul Essery G3KFE wasn't happy about it
1984
1982
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- Class B licence holders would only have this privilege for 2 weeks but word spread fast and a number of G8 and G6 callsigns appeared on the HF bands, among them was UK Horizontal FM Group founder Arthur Dorsett G8YLH who put his tri-band Yagi to good use
1977
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- Details of the changes are given in December 1976 Radcom page 892, they included:
- Pedestrian Mobile operation permitted - Prior to mid-1975 operating amateur transmitting equipment whilst walking was not permitted as it was excluded from both the Main station licence and the Mobile licence. From Summer 1975 if you held a Mobile licence you could get a letter of authorisation to permit Pedestrian Mobile, see July 1975 RadCom page 524. The 1977 licence permitted both Pedestrian and Mobile operation, a separate Mobile licence and letter of authorisation were no longer required
- Data transmissions permitted but only on 144 MHz and above
- Slow-scan TV permitted
- Facsimile permitted
- Double-sideband suppressed carrier transmissions permitted
20 Feb 1969
1964
Wireless Telegraphy Act, 1949 - Amateur (Sound) Licence B - Call sign prefix G8
Wireless Telegraphy Act, 1949 - Amateur (Sound Mobile) Licence
1958
1954
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- The 1954 UK Amateur (Sound) Licence authorized individuals to establish and operate amateur radio transmitting and receiving stations for non-commercial, experimental purposes.
- The licence specified technical restrictions, including permitted frequency bands, emission types, and power limits, and prohibited operation at sea, in moving vehicles, or aircraft.
- Operators were required to use assigned call signs, follow identification procedures, and keep detailed station logs.
- The licence allowed operation at a main address, temporary locations (for up to four weeks), or alternative premises with advance notice to authorities.
- Only the licensee or other qualified, licensed individuals under direct supervision could operate the station.
- The station, licence, and log were subject to inspection by Post Office officials, and the station could be ordered to close at any time.
- The licence was valid for one year and renewable annually, but could be revoked or varied by the Postmaster-General at any time
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- The 1954 UK Amateur Television (ATV) Licence allowed licensed amateur radio operators to experiment with television transmission and reception on designated frequencies.
- It regulated technical parameters such as power limits and frequency bands to prevent interference with commercial and public broadcasts.
- The licence supported the growth of amateur television as a hobby and technical pursuit, reflecting post-war advances in broadcasting technology and the increasing popularity of television.
- It was issued under the framework of existing wireless telegraphy laws and required compliance with government conditions to ensure responsible use of the spectrum.
1950
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- Among the changes from the 1946 licence:
- Deletion of 58.5 MHz band
- Addition of 3.5-3.8 144-146, 420-460, 1215-1300, 5650-5850, 10000-10500 MHz bands
1948
1946
- Amateur radio operation permitted from January 1946 after the end of the war in Europe
- The 1946 UK Amateur Wireless Licence officially permitted individuals to operate amateur radio transmitting and receiving stations under government regulation.
- At the RSGB's request the G.P.O. dropped the old term of “Experimenter” and replaced it with “Amateur” - RSGB T&R Bulletin January 1946 New Licence pages 101-102
- It set limits on transmitter power, frequency bands, and emission types, and banned outdated technologies like spark transmitters.
- Operators were required to identify transmissions with assigned call signs, maintain detailed logs, and avoid causing interference with other radio services.
- The licence allowed for government inspection of equipment and could be revoked if conditions were violated.
- This licence reflected post-World War II efforts to regulate and modernize amateur radio, encouraging technical experimentation within a controlled and responsible framework
- There were two classes is licence issued from January 1946:
- Class A, callsign format G/GI/GM/GW “2” + three letter suffix e.g. GI2ABC, which were restriced to 25 watts DC input
- Class B, callsugns format G/GI/GM/GW “3” + three letter suffix e.g. G3ABC, with were permitted 150 watts DC input
- Source: Report of the Council - RSGB Bulletin December 1946 page 82
1938
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- The 1938 UK amateur radio licence was an official government document authorizing the holder to operate an amateur radio transmitting station. These licenses did not require you to pass any written exams alhough you did have to describe the experiment for which you required transmitting equipment.
- The licence outlined the terms and conditions for legal operation, including permitted frequencies, power limits, and identification requirements.
- This licence exemplified the formal regulation of amateur radio before World War II, promoting technical experimentation while ensuring responsible and controlled use of the radio spectrum.
- In the 1930's holders were issued with a callsign in the format Prefix-Numeral-Two Letter Suffix e.g. G3YY. There were three possible prefixes G, GI or GM depending on the station's location in the UK.
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- These were issued in the 1930's and permitted the holder to own transmitting equipment but importantly they were not allowed to radiate a signal. If the transmitter was activated it had to be connected to a Dummy Load.
- No tests or knowledge of Morse were required for the licence
- Licence holders were issued with a callsign in the format Numeral-Three Letter Suffix e.g. 2FHS. There was no prefix as the holder wasn't authorised to radiate a signal
1934
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- The 1934 UK amateur radio licence was an official government document authorizing the holder to operate an amateur radio transmitting station. These licenses did not require you to pass any written exams alhough you did have to describe the experiment for which you required transmitting equipment.
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- This permitted transmitting video in 30.0-32.0 MHz with the sound carrier in 28.035-29.965 MHz
1923
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- The 1923 Constructor's Licence for a Receiving Station in the UK allowed individuals to legally build and operate their own wireless receiving equipment at home.
- This licence was distinct from the standard broadcast receiving licence, as it specifically catered to hobbyists and experimenters who wanted to construct their own sets rather than purchase factory-made, BBC-approved receivers. The BBC received a portion of the price of every radio manufactured by its six shareholding member companies; Marconi Company, Metropolitan-Vickers, Radio Communication Company, British Thomson-Houston, General Electric Company and Western Electric.
- The licence imposed conditions to prevent interference with other stations and required compliance with technical and operational rules.
- It reflected the growing interest in radio as a hands-on hobby and marked an important step in supporting technical experimentation by amateurs in the early days of British broadcasting.
1922
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- The 1922 Wireless Broadcast Receiving Licence was introduced in the UK to permit individuals to legally own and use a radio receiver for listening to broadcasts.
- Issued by the British Post Office, the licence cost 10 shillings per year and was required for all radio receivers, which had to be approved and marked with the BBC logo.
- The fee helped fund the newly established British Broadcasting Company (BBC), making it possible to provide public radio broadcasts without relying on commercial advertising.
- The licence strictly covered reception (not transmission) and came with regulations on equipment and use.
1914
- 1 August 1914 a telegram was sent to radio amateurs instructing them to immediately dismantle their station
1907
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- The 1907 UK Amateur Radio Licence document is the earliest known license for amateur radio operation in the UK.
- It was issued by the Postmaster General to regulate and permit experimental wireless telegraphy by private individuals.
- The licence set out conditions to prevent interference with official and commercial communications and marked the formal beginning of regulated amateur radio activity in the UK