Bredhurst Receiving and Transmitting Society

1a Nature of amateur radio

1a.1 Recall the various types of amateur licence (Foundation, Intermediate, Full), and identify thier call signs, including regional Secondary Liocators and optional suffixes /A, /P, /M and /MM. The optional club secondary locators are not examined.

Levels of Licence

In the Foundation Licence course you were introduced to amateur radio and it was explained that there are three main levels of licence.

The types of licence now existing (6/10/2003) are :-

The "1" and "0" are now of only historic interest

The "1" in the callsigns above previously indicated a "B" grade call that could only operate above 30MHz and the "0" that of an "A" grade callsign could operate on all bands that the "B" grade could operate and in addition could operate below 30MHz - To obtain and "A" grade licence the "B" licence holder had to achieve a pass at the morse code test of 12wpm.

The "5"

The "5" is also of historic interest and used to indicate a "full" licence holder who had passed the 5 wpm morse assessment.

Secondary identifiers

With the intermediate Licence level :-

understand that with Intermediate level licence the Secondary Identifier is the only letter to be used after the 2 and prior to the 0 or 1 and is used to identify the location. see the block above to see how an Isle of Man station would give their callsign.

With the Foundation and Advanced level licence :-

Thus the secondary identifier follows the initial letter in the callsign in Foundation and Advanced licence call signs ONLY:-

M, D, W, I, J & U ,

With all level licences there is also:-

/P (when not at your main station address but at a fixed location) and

/M (for when you are mobile, walking, cycling etc).

Please note that whilst the Advanced Amateur Radio Licence is recognised for reciprocal operation in other countries, recognition of all UK licences is up to the host administration. As not all countries have "Intermediate" Licences there is no mutual recognition arrangements have been made as at 5th July 2003 thus Intermediate Licence holders MAY NOT operate a station located OUTSIDE UK. HOWEVER in the July 2003 RADCOM (the Bulletin of the RSGB) it is announced that as Gibraltar has introduced its own Foundation Licence scheme that this is a changing situation.

Do also remember that / M is mobile and / P at an alternative fixed location away from your main address and that these can be used with any of the above call sign combination.