The big advantage of the Icom 705 is that at airports everyone thinks it's some kind of gadget or expensive toy.
SDR radio without knobs and screen even better! But the question is not only to pass customs control but to operate legally. When I applied for license in 7X country they wanted exact equipment model / serial no and even exact antenna description or model if commercially made and imported. Potentially it had to be locally approved as well with technical inspection by the regulator... So the station specs are "frozen". On top of that as locally there is not ham radio shops everything had to be imported with lot of constraints and specific licensing which explains why after two years I abandoned the project of operating my own HF station from there... Ham radio gear was considered as highly sensitive equipment that must be strictly controlled. You can say that there are countries ham friendly and the others where especially foreign operators are not very welcome. Sometimes this is only a question to pay license fees and sometimes it's almost impossible to get there with a radio. Each country may recognize FCC or CE certification or build a complicated system that will effectively get rid of radio amateurs... either foreign or even local ones.
Here is the USA, if your neighbors washing machines, is broke they blame the Ham Operator! No joke! All good! I have a ton more stories, but I will save them for other posts! DE NN2X Tom
The U.S. is still pretty loose on this. Anybody can build their own transmitter, or their entire station, and if it meets 47CFR Part 97 emission regulations (which are not difficult to meet), it's perfectly legal to use anywhere in America. Manufacturing multiple items for sale has some different requirements.
OK, that's fine. If like most Americans you never have or never will leave the US, then it is of course of no consequence to you... Unless of course you happen to be a DXer! A great many of the hams working from "rare" countries weren't born there, and many don't live there full time. These people frequently have to navigate Byzantine regulatory regimes to get a station on the air so you and your buddies in the local ham club can brag to each other about what far flung country you just worked. I will add that this is not just a US website, and that there are lots of Amateurs all around the world who deal with this kind of stuff every day, and have to go to great lengths just to put a signal on the air. This thread is probably more for them. HS0ZPC
While in the foreign service, I was licensed in Liberia (EL2FB) and Mauritania (5T5SR) back in the '80s. In both instances, getting the license and permission to operate was a bit of an ordeal, even as a US diplomat. It took various contacts, handshakes, additional (cough) "fees" (cough), etc. For the most part, the freedoms we have to operate here in the US are not replicated worldwide.
Including the treatment of anyone associated with the diplomatic embassy! I believe anyone associated with the Elbonian Embassy here in the US can declare diplomatic immunity.
This is because we claim to pay attention to science but the lawyers outnumber scientist/engineers in this country!
Really? Perhaps you'd like to share some of your personal experiences in Cambodia... My experiences are quite different. I would say that Cambodia is a very poor country, but the Khmer people are some of the sweetest and most generous I have ever met. I cannot tell you the number of times traveling in rural Cambodia I was invited and welcomed into the homes of people who had almost nothing, but offered to share with me, a complete stranger. The government has not always been the peoples friend, but I have found them to be some of the most positive and optimistic people I have ever met, anywhere in the world. If I could describe their general attitude in a very few words it would read something like this... Yesterday was very hard, today is much much better, I can't wait for tomorrow. This is in a nation that had as much as 25% of it's population murdered in the death camps and prison farms of the Khmer Rouge in the period from 1975 to 1979. The Khmer people have know great and unimaginable hardship. I find their spirit to be amazing. Don't tell them nothing in their country has changed since that time. I believe that we in the"civilized" west have a lot to learn about life. I firmly believe that we, who have been blessed with so much can benefit greatly from experience and spirit of those who have been blessed with so little. Gordo HS0ZPC