Summary

  • Ofcom’s 2026 consultation proposes licences for drone-detection radar at 24 GHz and 16 GHz, but the published status remains “Pending Statement (Closed)”.
  • The proposal authorizes detection, not jamming or another active countermeasure. A useful public rule must connect the licensed sensor to a separately authorized decision-maker without giving the sensor operator powers it does not have.

A radio permission has a clear edge

A spectrum licence answers a narrow question: may this equipment transmit on these frequencies, from this site, under these conditions? Ofcom’s draft drone-radar licence is built around that question. Its consultation draws a second boundary just as plainly. Detecting an aircraft and interfering with it are different acts, governed by different powers.

Ofcom published “Enabling drone innovation and security” on 16 July 2026. The consultation closed on 30 September. The regulator’s page, updated on 20 October, still lists the status as “Pending Statement (Closed)”. It proposes a new licence for detection radar at 24 GHz and 16 GHz. The same consultation separately proposes temporary access to additional bands for drone control links; those control links are not the radar proposal.

The distinction matters because the headline phrase “counter-drone radar” can make a sensor sound like an intervention system. Ofcom’s consultation does not do that. It says the proposed licence covers detection. Jamming and other active electronic measures sit outside Ofcom’s Wireless Telegraphy Act powers. Public bodies may use separate statutory powers for those measures. The consultation is not the final licence, and its early-2027 statement may change the proposal.

The draft records the machine, not the alert

The draft licence gets specific about the transmitter. It requires operation on a non-interference, non-protected basis. The licensee must keep the equipment’s postal address, a National Grid Reference accurate to at least 10 metres, the frequencies used and transmitted power. It must provide those records when requested by an Ofcom-authorized person and submit them at intervals Ofcom may set.

The proposed technical schedule adds more boundaries. It bars airborne use. It places a one-kilometre exclusion around named radio-astronomy sites for the 24 GHz option. The 16 GHz option is tied to a deployment location and radius supplied by the applicant, with coordination conditions. These are meaningful controls on where a radar may operate and how it shares the radio environment.

They are records about equipment. The draft does not prescribe a message for a detected object, name a receiving body, set an acknowledgment period, or say where a disputed track is escalated. The consultation publishes no separate police, security or aviation protocol naming a recipient, acknowledgment route and escalation point. A public procedure with those three details would change the record; for now, the published path ends at the licensed equipment.

Coexistence evidence is not an operating chain

The CAA’s individual response welcomes the proposed bands for control links but says resilience and protection from interference matter. On detection radar, it says the CAA needs confidence in coordination, licensing and operational resilience when counter-UAS and detect-and-avoid radars operate close to one another. That is a safety and coexistence concern. It does not assign the recipient of a detection alert.

The Home Office’s response supports the proposed approach to 450 MHz guard bands protecting adjacent public-safety TETRA systems. It also cites Ofcom’s test finding that speed-meter accuracy was maintained during the Baldock drone-radar measurements. That is useful evidence about interference. It says nothing about who receives a live radar observation or records the later decision.

Those are different questions. A radar can satisfy its frequency and power conditions while an operator still needs a clear route for passing an observation to a public authority. A public authority can hold the legal power to act while having no role in the spectrum licence. If the two documents never meet, the public can see the sensor’s authorization but not the accountability path from detection to disposition.

Put the handoff where the authority sits

Ofcom should keep the radio licence inside its remit. Turning a spectrum permission into a general power to interfere would blur the boundary the consultation has correctly drawn. The response interface belongs with the bodies that already have the relevant operational and statutory roles, working with radar operators and the aviation regulator where needed.

A short, auditable handoff record would be enough to make that interface legible. It could identify the sensor and site, time of observation, location and confidence level; name the receiving control point; record acknowledgment and the route for escalation; and preserve which authority made a later decision under which power. The record should carry only what the receiver needs and should not turn a radar track into an automatic instruction.

No operational alert protocol is linked from the consultation. A short receipt would let a later reviewer distinguish a radio-licence question from a flight-safety judgment and an enforcement decision. It would also keep the authority to intervene with the body Parliament or another statute has empowered, rather than quietly lodging it with the person who owns the sensor.

Ofcom says it plans a statement in early 2027. Readers should watch whether that statement changes the bands or technical conditions, and whether a separate public document names the operational handoff. A licence can make a detection lawful. The next document has to show who is allowed to make it consequential.

Sources