As I covered in the last NARC Live, Ofcom have announced that phase two and three of their significant updating of licence conditions have now come into force and these will or could affect all UK amateurs with a radio license. Opportunities include the ability to change their callsigns directly (including changing 2E0 or 2E1 to new M8 or M9 calls), extensive Special Event callsign changes and a much clearer and easier way of validating your license with a specific confirmation button, which note that you must still do at least every 5 years or they will revoke licenses. They also reiterate their intention that every UK amateur will only be able to retain one callsign (except club or contest calls), so if you are like me and still have a lower license level callsign this will be revoked by Ofcom at some point, so a good reason to consider your options and make wise choices before changing your callsign.
You can make many of these changes from now by signing into your Ofcom account (though you may be asked to strengthen your password when you next sign in), but I strongly advise you to read the official details and guidance on the Ofcom website and also useful additional guidance from the RSGB before making any changes to your license or callsign etc as there are some conditions and if you change your callsign it might, for example, have ramifications on any DX or contest logs when you lose the loss of your current callsign and you will not be able to change it again for at least 5 years. This really is a case of reading the small print detail from Ofcom before acting.
An easy way to find and link to this guidance is from the RSGB’s GB2RS news here: https://rsgb.org/main/blog/news/gb2rs/headlines/2025/10/17/ofcom-implements-phases-2-and-3-of-the-amateur-radio-licence-review/
NARC Badges
As a club we are happy to provide a club badge to every new member at no cost when they first join and also reward a member with a new badge free of charge when they pass an exam and change their callsign from a foundation to an intermediate or to a full. As Ofcom are currently encouraging existing 2E0 and 2E1 to change to an M8 or M9 callsign (not mandatory, at least not yet but read their guidance on retaining your suffix) we have decided to also offer replacement badges free of charge to any current 2E0 or 2E1 callsign member who decides to change their intermediate callsign to an M8 or M9.
However current members who decide to change their callsign just for a change (sometimes called vanity callsigns) then we will ask them to pay £2.50 for a new badge (plus £2 UK postage if you would like it posted to you rather than collect it from a club meeting or collect it from me).
If you change your callsign please be sure to email our membership secretary and treasurer Mark G0LGJ so that he can update our membership list and add your badge requirement to our next order (I usually place a badge order once per month). You can email Mark here: g0lgj@norfolkamateurradio.org
I hope this summary helps – remember please read the detail and consider any consequences before acting!
David G7URP – on behalf of NARC
These badges are currently held at CNS waiting for collection from the canteen area (as of 22.10.25). We encourage members to collect them from a meeting or event where practicable, but if you would like it posted we ask for £2.00 for UK post as that is what it will cost us.
