22 meter beacons outside the US (and England especially)

[SWL-IO90]

Greetings everybody from the south of England!

I am new to this website but I am particularly interested in 22 meter beacons.  I never even knew that such a thing existed anywhere in the world!

I like the idea of putting a beacon on the air from my location - assuming, of course, it would be legal to do so.  I've done some research online about the 22 meter ISM band.  I gather it's a worldwide allocation, but I did not find any web page that even addressed the question as to whether running beacons in the UK is legal or not.

I could make a dipole with no problems at all.  My homebrewing / soldering skills are very basic though.  Something like the kit from Black Cat Systems would probably be OK for me to put together, but designing or building anything more complex than that would be beyond my skills unfortunately.

So my two questions:

1)  Does anybody know if 22 meter beacons are legal in the UK?  Or, at least, there is no official published guidance that bans them?  I would work on the assumption that anything that isn't specifically banned is allowed.

2)  If beacons are legal / tolerated, does anybody know where I could buy a kit similar to the one sold by Black Cat Systems?  I say 'similar' because their website says that they don't ship outside the US.

I would love to host a beacon and try to get a signal across to the USA using the really really low power allowed on this frequency!

Many thanks for reading this and for any help you can offer.

73
SWL in IO90 (England)

[Josh]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short-range_device#Frequency_bands

[Prairiedog]

You would need to search Ofcom's regulations carefully and maybe contact them directly.  My reading of IR2030 shows the band to be available for short range license-exempt devices of non-specific purpose, but my copy is from 2011 and may no longer be in effect and/or subject to change if/when Brexit happens.

There was once hobby activity in the band in Holland, for example, under similar field strength limits as the US (except for being measured in A/m instead of our V/m). However, that apparently ended when their regulators decided to interpret the ECC Annex 1 comments of typical use being RFID tags as mandating that specific use.

[SWL-IO90]

Thank you to both of you for your replies.

I have contacted OFCOM and will wait to see what they say. I've had dealings with them before so I'm not holding my breath for a straightforward "yes you can" or "no you can't" answer, though!

Assuming that beacons are legal or at least tolerated, can somebody please suggest where I could get a 22m beacon kit from in the UK?  Is there a company or individual out there who will send kits outside of the USA?

Many thanks.

[Ed H]

SWL,

A quick search turned up this Ofcom document:

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0022/103297/fat-ism-frequencies.pdf

Alas, early on this states:

"In the United Kingdom the use of ISM apparatus is allowed provided it does not
contravene the provisions of the Wireless Telegraphy Act 2006. The International
Telecommunications Union defines ISM in the Radio Regulations as:
“industrial, scientific and medical (ISM) applications (of radio
frequency energy): Operation of equipment or appliances designed
to generate and use locally radio frequency energy for industrial,
scientific, medical, domestic or similar purposes, excluding
applications in the field of telecommunications.”

I found more of the same at this location for UK frequency allocation Again the Wireless and Telegraphy act is cited, but I have not had chance to try and decipher that particular document:

http://static.ofcom.org.uk/static/spectrum/fat.html


I suspect that any intentional radio emission with the intent of reaching significant distance is forbidden, but have yet to find proof.

Ed

[Josh]

You could justify it as scientific in the sense you're studying the propagation of ism signals.

[Prairiedog]

One should not confuse ISM bands with license-exempt services. Even though some of them share allocated frequencies, they are not synonymous! The regulations for one service cannot simply be applied to the other.

Example: 44 meters has an international ISM allocation that's implemented in both the US and Canada. License-exempt communication/non-specific-use devices are also permitted on those frequencies in Canada under RSS-210 rules, but not under FCC Part 15 in the US.

Other ISM bands in the US are shared with specific other radio services, like 11 meters (CB radio) and 33 cm (Amateur Radio), and also license-exempt devices.  But over half our ISM bands are simply not available under Part 15, except under tightly limited circumstances, if even then.

Conversely, some of the most popular bands for license-exempt devices are not ISM bands at all: 160-190 kHz, 510-1705 kHz, 49.86 MHz, and the FM broadcast band.