John's Vademecum

What's the requirement in the UK now, for identification of Gateways which are operating under your own licence, rather than an Notice of Variation that used to be needed in the olden days?

Identification
  21. The licensee that shall ensure that:
    a) the station is clearly identifiable at all times;
    b) the call sign is transmitted as "frequently as is practicable during transmissions"; and
    c) the Call sign is given in voice or other appropriate format consistent with the mode of operation.

and nothing at all in the “Gateways” section that would require anything more than as frequently as is practicable.

Gateway operation
  14. The Radio Equipment may be used as a Gateway and may be operated (but not
      controlled) by other radio amateurs without supervision, providing that the Licensee:
      a) ensures that the Gateway transmits at powers no greater than 5 Watts ERP;
      b) is able to demonstrate that reasonable steps have been taken to minimise the risk 
         of the Gateway causing undue interference to other authorised uses of radio and
         provide evidence of this if requested by Ofcom;
      c) is able to close down the Gateway within two hours of being required to do so by
         Ofcom.
      d) takes all reasonable steps to ensure that the Gateway is only used by an Amateur;
      e) remains responsible for the operation of the Gateway and compliance with the
         terms, conditions and limitations of the Licence; and
      f) Anyone wishing to establish a link to a Repeater must have the written permission
         of the Repeater keeper to do so.

• I've added a couple of Crontab commands
  • The first one plays the ID every hour (that seems to meet “as frequently as is practicable”)
  • The second plays the time, after the ID on the hour

00 * * * * sudo /usr/sbin/asterisk -rx "rpt localplay 481480 /var/lib/asterisk/sounds/custom/gm4slv" > /dev/null 2>&1
00 * * * * sleep 4 && sudo /usr/sbin/asterisk -rx "rpt fun 481480 *81" >/dev/null 2>&1

• The sound file “gm4slv.ulaw” came from the Node Callsigns instead of Numbers script, renamed from 481410.ulaw to gm4slv.ulaw and stored in /var/lib/astersisk/sounds/custom
• The second crontab entry plays Good [morning|afternoon|evening] the time is…..
• They play sequentially at the top of the hour

This works, but it turns out to be an annoyance - especially when leaving a VHF H/T monitoring the gateway within earshot of people who don't appreciate such interesting radio signals

I disabled it after a couple of hours…..

• The standard morse ID still goes out after a transmission - if no ID has been sent for at least 15 minutes (because the Gateway hasn't been used for more than 15 minutes).
• I've changed the morse tone frequency and amplitude

[morse]
speed = 20                              ; Approximate speed in WPM
frequency = 600                         ; Morse Telemetry Frequency
amplitude = 2048                        ; Morse Telemetry Amplitude
idfrequency = 600                       ; Morse ID Frequency (was 1065)
idamplitude = 512                       ; Morse ID Amplitude (was 1024)

— John Pumford-Green 08/06/25 17:38 BST