ARLA/CLUSTER: Australia defende que radioamadores iniciantes devem poder emitir no minimo com uma potencia de 50W

[João Costa > CT1FBF]

WIA seeks 50 watts output for Foundation

In WIA News, Director Roger Harrison VK2ZRH sets out the Wireless
Institue of Australia's thinking on the future direction of the
Foundation licence

This is Roger Harrison VK2ZRH from the WIA Spectrum Strategy Committee
with another instalment on the WIA’s licence conditions submission to
the ACMA.

You will recall that, last week, I promised to highlight what the
Institute is seeking for Foundation licensees.

In setting out the proposed priority changes to licence conditions,
the WIA Board agreed that the Institute sought the permitted powers
for all licence grades reviewed in a sensible, pragmatic approach to
enable licensees to pursue their interests commensurate with their
established Knowledge – as demonstrated in licence assessment – and
within reasonable bounds of public and personal safety considerations.

That said, the submission acknowledged that the WIA is aware of
differing views on the issue and notes the disparity in current
permitted powers of all three Australian licence grades compared to
the similar licence grades in other countries.

Proposed changes to Foundation licence conditions were set down as
Priority 2 in the submission.

Six key issues are addressed in the submission. These are:

- Use of digital modes
- Access to more bands
- Increased power
- Relaxation of the restriction to commercially made rigs
- More permitted bandwidths
- A review of the Foundation callsign

Top of the list is permitting use of digital modes. The WIA seeks the
inclusion in Foundation licence conditions of a range of
digitally-produced data modes – and not limited to the well-known
digital voice modes.

The WIA also advocates inclusion of digital text transmission modes
and image transmission modes.

In researching background for the submission, it emerged that
entry-level licence conditions in a number of other countries have
included digital modes and image transmissions since inception, and no
evidence arose that this gave rise to reports of negative issues or
serious incidents.

The submission points out that entry-level licences in Argentina,
Canada, Japan, UK and the USA are cases in point.

And now we come to the bands permitted for Foundation licensees.

When comparing the entry-level licences of other countries, the number
and variety of bands permitted for Australian Foundation licensees is
paltry – just 5 bands – almost to the point of being mean-spirited!

The UK Foundation licence, on which the Australian qualification was
modelled, provides three times the number of bands permitted to
Australian Foundation operators. Both Argentina and Japan provide four
times the number of bands.

The underlying principal is this: Enabling access to more bands
provides a wider range of opportunities for Foundation licensees to
learn and gain experience in communications across the radiofrequency
spectrum.

And now we come to the vexed question of permitted maximum power. The
WIA submission notes that the permitted power for entry level licences
varies widely around the world – from 10 watts in the UK through 50
watts in Europe and South America, to 200 watts in some countries.

While contacts are certainly achievable using 10 watts, it is noted
that, for stations in urban areas, Foundation operators frequently
struggle making contacts battling against the prevailing RF noise
levels experienced both locally and overseas.

The submission advocates raising the permitted maximum power to 50
watts and points out that this does not present any particular
electromagnetic emission safety issues and the experience in other
countries supports that.

And now to rigs.

The WIA seeks relaxation of the restriction on the use of commercially
manufactured transceivers for Foundation operators.

The objective here is to enable Foundation licensees to broaden their
range of learning experiences and for their conditions to more closely
match those for similar entry-level licences overseas, in particular,
the UK.

Experimentation with the technology is at the heart of amateur radio,
and has been since it began, over 100 years ago.

The WIA submission goes into the main details and notes that no
evidence has emerged of compliance issues requiring regulatory action
or management with entry-level licensees in other countries.

Transmission bandwidths:
Why should future Foundation operators be stuck with the basic legacy modes ?

The WIA advocates that permitted bandwidths be reviewed so as to
reduce limiting specifications, where practicable. This is in keeping
with the principle of enabling licensees to explore the use of more
transmission modes.

So now we come to the sticky business of Foundation callsigns.

The four-character suffix of the Australian Foundation licence
callsign format is unique in the world for ordinary station callsigns.

Despite a decade’s use, along with widespread promotion and education
about the callsign format, recognition of it is low among the
worldwide radio amateur community.

In addition, a majority of the available range of computer-mediated
digital transmission modes cannot accommodate callsigns with a
four-character suffix.

If our future Foundation licensees are permitted use of digital
transmission modes, the current callsigns would preclude using them.

In addressing future Amateur Licence conditions, the WIA wishes to
reiterate the desire to reduce the regulatory burden for both
licensees and the ACMA, and to establish amateur licensing so as to
accommodate emerging innovation in radiocommunications technologies
and applications,

This has been Roger Harrison VK2ZRH for VK1WIA News.

The WIA’s submission on licence conditions can be downloaded from:
http://www.wia.org.au/newsevents/news/2016/20160413-4/index.php

Source WIA http://www.wia.org.au/