OFCOM letter about safety

Hi, just received this letter from Ofcom to ham amateurs. This could possibly affetc cb users as (for instance) the Pres Mckinley outputs 12w on ssb, and the proposed upper limit is 10w. Anyhoo, quite possibly have mis-interpreted and it seems to only effect licenced users. But have a look and see :-)

 Dear Licence Holder,
 
We are writing to make you aware of some important changes that we are proposing to make to your Wireless Telegraphy Act licence(s) issued by Ofcom.
 
In February and October last year, we issued two public consultations on our proposal to formally require licensees to comply with the internationally agreed levels in the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP) Guidelines for the protection of the general public from electromagnetic fields (EMF). We refer to these levels as the ICNIRP general public limits. In October, we also issued a Statement setting out our decision to formally require licensees to comply with the ICNIRP general public limits and we recently published an update on how we propose to implement that decision.  
 
We are now writing to you to inform you of our proposal to vary the terms and conditions of your licence(s) to require you to comply with the ICNIRP general public limits. In accordance with the Wireless Telegraphy Act and your licence(s), we are giving you notice of our proposal by publishing a General Notice on our website. 
 
We’ve put all the relevant information about our proposal including the General Notice on a dedicated EMF webpage ofcom.org.uk/emf. Here you will find details of the licence variation process alongside the background to the changes and lots of FAQs to help you understand what our proposal means for you. 
 
If, after reading the above information, you wish to make a representation to Ofcom in relation to our proposal to vary your licence(s), you have up until the 18 April 2021 to do so. However, if you do not wish to make a representation you do not need to take any action at this time. More information on the representation process can be found by visiting the Ofcom EMF webpage.
 
We will consider all representations before coming to a final decision on the variation of your licence(s). We will publish our final decision on the EMF page of our website by 18 May 2021. We will explain whether we have decided to vary your licence(s) to include the EMF condition. If your licence(s) has been varied we will send you an update of it or information on where a new version can be obtained from. 
 
In future we intend to make greater use of General Notices published on our website and may not individually contact you to inform you that we have published one. We would therefore urge all licensees to regularly check the Ofcom website or subscribe to email spectrum updates by going to the following page on our website ofcom.org.uk/about-ofcom/latest/email-updates.
 
If you have any questions about this change and what it means for you, further information can be found on the dedicated EMF webpage using the address provided above.
 
Yours faithfully, 
 
Ofcom

No you have got it right , at the very start Ofcom said it would cover even licence free/exempt transmitters over 10w but only when they get around to it , as CB is 12w SSB with a 50% duty factor blah blah blah its not going to be much of a problem not to mention legally CB is only suposed to use vertical antennas. On the other hand taking someone to court over interferance or TXing illegally is one thing taking someone to court over a H & S issue is something else but more chance of stepping in rocking horse sh*t than either happening LOL.

Basically the whole idea is to stop random people walking past your antenna, whether that's neighbours in their garden or if you have a footpath going past it, getting RF burns when you key up. It's not about people in your house because you have the ability to tell them you're going on the air and to keep away but you can't do that with other people.

Effectively unless you have a ground mounted antenna in a small garden and you're using silly power you're not going to exceed the exposure limits.

This calculator you can have a play with. It checks against the FCC limits, not the body that OFCOM is using, but it'll give you an idea.

http://hintlink.com/power_density.htm

For example 50W on 11m band into an antenna with 2.2dBi/0dBd gain at 10ft distance is just over 2/3 the safe limit for an uncontrolled environment.

You want to see the way some of them are over-reacting on ham facebook groups. The way they're banging on you'd think it was the end of the world for anything that transmitted no matter how low the power.

Nice one Conor.

The calculator link you provided seems a lot more appropriate and doesn't spit it's dummy when you enter less than 10MHz into the frequency, (Unlike the UK spreadsheet calculators so far provided!)

You're right in that a lot of misinformation due to over-reaction is going on and none of it helps. I was *ahem* 'advised' by a fellow Ham that my attic antennas would be unsuitable as my neighbour has converted their loft into a bedroom so would be 'exposing' them. Couldn't see how considering it's a fan dipole with the centre some 20-odd feet from either party wall and at the peak of the roofline with a maximum transmit power of 10W?!?


Great posting, sure to 'calm' some down.

For ICNIRP 2020 frequencies 10MHz and below the EMF exposure seperation limits need to be calculated with peak power not average power .

I received this letter from Ofcom about my marine radio!

You'll have to work out how far down the mast you'll have to put a warning notice 

Knig wrote:

You'll have to work out how far down the mast you'll have to put a warning notice 

You need it at the high voltage point, so they know it is for real.