Revision of EU R&TTE-Directive

Thilo DL9KCE reports that a revision of the EU R&TTE-Directive might impact on Amateur Radio.

On the IARU Region 1 website he writes:

The European Parliament published the "SECOND PROGRESS REPORT ON THE OPERATION OF DIRECTIVE 1999/5/EC on radio equipment and telecommunications terminal equipment and the mutual recognition of their conformity", which might affect the Amateur Radio Service in the future.

Some terms might be redefined as the following citations from this report indicate....

1. The Directive contains in Article 3 a number of essential requirements to protect health and safety, ensure electromagnetic compatibility and to avoid harmful interference. The way in which these essential requirements are defined in the Directive is generally considered appropriate by stakeholders. However, the concept of ‘intended use’ of the equipment seems to create some confusion between the essential requirements of the Directive and other public interests, such as public security or freedom of communication, which are beyond its scope.

2. There has also been some evidence suggesting that harmonised standards may sometimes be too stringent. Market surveillance campaigns have shown that a proportion of unlicensed low power devices appear to be non conformant with the harmonised standards (cf. § 2.5).

However, the recorded level of harmful interference does not seem to have been affected by this.

3. The scope of the Directive needs to be reviewed. For instance, the radio and TV receivers which are not able to transmit by radio or cable do not fall within the scope of the Directive, while those which are able to transmit signals do.

... and so on.

Please watch this document and possibly intervene through your national MEPs if you find it necessary.

Download the document at
http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/sectors/rtte/files/
2nd_progress_report/2nd_progress_report_rtte_en.pdf

IARU Region 1
http://www.iaru-r1.org/