It's going to be expensive

I personally own 3 channel 69 radio mics at the moment which I estimate would cost £6000 - £8000 to replace in total. I also have a powering rack for two of them which will also need to be replaced.

As all my radio mics are quite old I stand to get very little or nothing at all under the funding scheme currently proposed by OFCOM. 

OFCOM consider that radio mics are obsolite after 10 years, Sennheiser actually guarantee some of their top of the range radio mics for 10 years and we don't throw anything else out because the guarantee has run out do we? Especially if it cost you £2500 and it still works like new, as my mics do.

The timescale for being able to get funding also seems unfair on anyone who needs to buy mics now. Anything licensced on channel 69 after Feb 2009 won't get funding, yet you can't get a comparable license for another channel yet either.

OFCOM are currently accepting responses to their consultation document online. 
The response form can be reached at: http://www.ofcom.org.uk/consult/condocs/800mhz/howtorespond/

The Consultation document itself is downloadable from http://www.ofcom.org.uk/consult/condocs/800mhz/
 Page 44 sections 5.68 and 5.69 detail the criteria they are using for assigning "funding".

A letter explaining the Channel 69 situation in a non techie way is now available at

http://tinyurl.com/dcx2ew

or via

http://www.marymilton.co.uk/sound_site/2009/04/radio-mic-switch-off-letter.html

please circulate to anyone you think may need the information.

Costs will depend on the microphone you own. The Micron Explorer I believe will be £400 a piece, but the Audio 2020, a very popular microphone amongest recordists can not be converted so will have to be replaced.

The situation seems to be that any licencesed user with a microphone that can be converted will get some financial help to do so - maybe even the full cost. Anyone who needs to buy a replaced because their mic is not convertable should also get some sort of funding but probably not in full, and if your mic is quite old you may get very little. If you aren't licensed then you won't get anything and your mic will become illegal to use after 2012, some time after that it will become impossible to use anyway as the frequencies will be in use by other users. 

There are so many small users of Channel 69 like us who were told the frequencies we bought did not require a licence. We have now not only got to get  the annual licence but in 2 years time have to purchace all new equipment  with no redress for the misinformation we were given on the purchase of the original equipment. My management are not very happyabout tyhis.