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<H1>Australian Amateur Licence Changes</H1>
<P><FONT face=Verdana>The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA)
has announced changes to the Amateur licence that will open the door to
reciprocal operating with CEPT countries.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Verdana>From WIA News:</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Verdana>This is Michael Owen VK3KI President of the Wireless
Institute of Australia.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Verdana>Today I am able to tell you of 3 major decisions made last
Thursday by the ACMA board.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Verdana>In short, the news is that ACMA has made the Determination
to amend the Amateur LCD to make the last of changes foreshadowed in the
Outcomes published in May 2004; ACMA has issued the Class Licence allowing
visiting amateurs to operate in Australia without any other Australian licence,
which is hopefully the last steps from our end before Australian amateurs can
operate in the CEPT countries on the basis of their Australian Advanced licence,
and finally ACMA has announced who has been successful in submitting its
expression of interest in the amateur examination management, certificate and
certain call sign functions outsourcing.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Verdana>Those are the headlines. Now, for a little
detail.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Verdana>The amendments to the LCD are quite extensive. Let me try
and summarise the major changes:</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Verdana><STRONG><U>The prohibition on the connection of automated
systems to a public telecommunications network, which includes the Internet, has
been removed.</U></STRONG></FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Verdana>Foundation licensees cannot make such connections, but
Advanced, Standard and Repeater licensees can, but now must "implement
reasonable measures to ensure that only appropriately licensed person access the
station."</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Verdana>New, and not foreshadowed in the ACA Outcomes, is an
obligation on Standard and Advanced licensees (but not repeater licensees) to
warn a person connected to an amateur station from a public telecommunications
network that they can be heard by others.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Verdana>Now, signals encoded for the purpose of obscuring the
meaning may be used for controlling a satellite or an unattended amateur
stations or in emergency operations.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Verdana>The AX call sign will be able to be used on Australia Day,
Anzac Day and World Telecommunication day without doing more.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Verdana>A number of matters are made clear for the Foundation
licensee. At last, 10 watts may be used for all permitted modes. But a
Foundation licensee cannot allow a person who is not an amateur to use his or
her transmitter, or operate his or her station in automatic mode or computer
controlled mode or operate his or her station directly connected to a public
telecommunications network.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Verdana>The obligation for all stations in a net to identify all
stations every 10 minutes is relaxed for emergency networks, so that one station
may identify all stations every 30 minutes.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Verdana><STRONG>There is now a clear requirement that a person
operating through a repeater must be licensed to operate on the repeaters output
frequency.</STRONG></FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Verdana>As foreshadowed in the Outcomes paper, the Amateur LCD now
defines limits to spurious emissions, in fact the ITU limits already applying to
the amateur service.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Verdana><STRONG>A new and rather complex definition of "operate"
defines how an amateur station may be used by someone who is not an
amateur</STRONG>.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Verdana>The Amending Determination comes into effect the day after
it is registered, probably next Monday or Tuesday. I hope that a copy will then
be available on the WIA website. I have also written a paper that describes in
more particular terms the changes, and that is already available on the WIA
website.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Verdana>In probably 3 or 4 weeks a consolidated version of the
Amateur LCD incorporating these amendments will be published. That will be a lot
easier to read, and something everyone will need to have.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Verdana>The next major piece of news is that the ACMA has issued a
class licence to allow visiting amateurs to operate in Australia for up to 90
days using their home call sign followed by the suffix VK followed by "portable"
and then the location of the station, without doing anything more.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Verdana><STRONG>That class licence comes into effect on 14
February.</STRONG></FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Verdana>There are 5 levels of visitor licence, 3 matching the
Australian Advanced, Standard and Foundation licenses, a VHF licence, and
finally, in effect, a 146 to 148 FM licence.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Verdana>The privileges of each level are set out in the class
licence.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Verdana>ACMA will publish on its website a table showing
equivalencies to the Australian visitor levels for different overseas
licences.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Verdana><STRONG>This class licence for visiting amateurs is, we
hope, the final step before CEPT allows Australian Advanced licensees to operate
a in the CEPT countries, some 32 countries mainly in Europe, using their
Australian call sign, without doing more.</STRONG></FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Verdana>The WIA will let everyone know immediately CEPT has
allowed Australian amateurs to operate under what is called TR 61 01.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Verdana>I hope that a copy of the Class Licence will also be
available on the WIA website next Monday or Tuesday.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Verdana>All of these changes mean that extensive changes are
currently being made to the ACMA website, but they won't all be in place
immediately. Please be patient.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Verdana>Now the final piece of news.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Verdana>As you know, the WIA has repeatedly expressed its concern
that its role as the manager of the amateur examination system has not been
secure. Finally, last year the ACMA advertised for expressions of interest to
provide the examination management function, to issue certificates, and certain
call sign functions.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Verdana>The WIA has been advised that its expression of interest
met all the criteria published by ACMA for the tasks, and that ACMA will now
negotiate the terms of a contract with the WIA to cover these matters being
outsourced.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Verdana><STRONG><U>Together, these three matters are of great
importance to Australian amateurs, with now only one matter outstanding, that is
for CEPT to accept that VK licensees can operate in the CEPT countries as we
will allow their licensees to operate after 14 February.</U></STRONG></FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Verdana> </FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Verdana>Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA)
</FONT><A href="http://www.acma.gov.au/WEB/HOMEPAGE/PC=HOME" target=_blank><FONT
face=Verdana>http://www.acma.gov.au/WEB/HOMEPAGE/PC=HOME</FONT></A></P>
<P><FONT face=Verdana>ACMA Amends Amateur LCD<BR></FONT><A
href="http://www.wia.org.au/newsevents/news/2008/20080208-3/index.php"
target=_blank><FONT
face=Verdana>http://www.wia.org.au/newsevents/news/2008/20080208-3/index.php</FONT></A></P>
<P><FONT face=Verdana>The New Australian Amateur Radio Regulations </FONT></P>
<P><A
href="http://www.wia.org.au/newsevents/news/2008/20080208-3/documents/The%20New%20Amateur%20Regulations.pdf"
target=_blank><FONT
face=Verdana>http://www.wia.org.au/newsevents/news/2008/20080208-3/documents/The%20New%20Amateur%20Regulations.pdf</FONT></A><BR></P></BODY></HTML>