Ofcom asked about PMR 446 prosecutions

[Piggly]

A couple of observations on this.
Firstly, enforcement is complaint driven so unless someone complains there is unlikely to be any investigation and enforcement action. If you are operating outside of the IR for PMR446 but not being daft about it then you’ll likely never really cause a problem or be noticed.
Secondly, not all enforcement is about prosecutions, so enforcement action may (and has in the past) entailed a bit of a telling off along the “don’t do that again” lines.

Tra.

Piggly.

[Agent 48]

I can see ofcom relaxing the rules about the 0.5watts and fixed antenna rule before long... there are so many people now, builders company's & other organizations using PMR446 on 5 watt radios now it be very hard for ofcom to regulate this...

I do recall ofcom banning, or trying to ban the sales of commercial radios that had been programmed with the license free PMR446 frequencies.

[[LCS]]

Here in the US our regulatory agency, FCC, changed the rules in 2018 to allow 2 watts on most of the then FRS channels that were limited to 0.5 watts. Our license free UHF FRS service is basically like your PMR446 analog band. So far it hasn't really been a problem, 2 watt radios. Good luck getting it changed in the UK for higher power.

Our GMRS service shares the same exact frequencies with FRS, but with a license can run 5 watts on some of the 22 channels and up to 50 watts on 8 of them for repeater access. FRS doesn't allow repeater access.

It would be nice if our FCC got off their arse and allowed digital on our FRS/GMRS band like you have with dPMR446 in the UK. We're stuck with FM only.