Australia to consider fee-free amateur licensing

The Australian Communication & Media Authority has announced a review of licensing arrangements governing radio amateurs. Currently VK amateurs pay an annual fee under the apparatus licensing arrangements.

ACMA is seeking community input on three licensing options. Their preferred option involves moving amateurs over to a fee-free class licence. Amateur beacons and repeaters would however remain under apparatus licensing.

More here:



Read ACMA's material here, including a draft amateur class licence:

https://www.acma.gov.au/consultatio...t-regulatory-arrangements-consultation-012021

 

Part 2 including early reactions.

 

Interesting questions well presented. The Outpost Licence reminds me a little of what I saw in a Northern Territory station when a child used the School of the Air for her lessons. Using amateur radio in this large and mostly empty country makes sense, though whether it should be a separate class is certainly an issue that you are addressing. But no matter the outcome, just of curiosity has anyone considered making the amateur licences 5 or 10 years? That would eliminate a lot of paperwork for both the operators and the government.

 

Don't do it Australia!!!! You're going to end up with a bunch of entitled hams, and if you ever try to re-instate the fee in the future, you'll end up with 50 page QRZ threads complaining about not being able to afford $3 a year.

 

Like taxes, or license fee, I very rarely witnessed the fees goes down..(I am just saying)!

NN2X...Tom

 

It is called a class license, it stipulates that the license holder can not cause interference and must accept interference from other users of shared spectrum!!! No recourse whatsoever !!! We don't want it and we will tell our regulator just that. $55 per year to have all the spectrum we have plus some protections and regulator oversight is not much to pay.

 

The so called Class License sounds very much like a free for all. Must accept interference from other users of the shared spectrum yet must not cause interference. No protection at all from interference.

I have no problems with paying $55 a year for my apparatus license and see no reason for these proposed changes.

 

It is free in ZL New Zealand

 

You should learn from the mistakes of others.

Two quotes from the VK3YE video;

"Pay nothing - get nothing"
and
"Amateurs could not be trusted with this form of self-regulation"

These summarise my own views, and I believe also those of many spectrum regulators. In the light of a similar fiasco about exam syllabi almost 10 years ago here, where the leadership of the national society actively undermined committee work about new exam content, the Administration understandably got very wary about cooperating with amateurs in the future.

If the annual fees are abolished, amateurs lose their every last trace of legal status and protection. The societies are against regulations and fees because they fear reduced membership numbers, and they do not care about the status and quality of amateur radio.

In my opinion, based on the actual worth of spectrum privileges, yearly amateur licence fees should be as a minimum the equivalent of USD 100.

This is derived from what military spectrum usage in first-world countries is billed, directly or indirectly, in form of administrative costs or fees. Radio amateurs and militaries have quite similar usage profiles and numbers of users in peacetime.

If annual licence fees cannot be re-introduced or kept, the Norwegian approach of charging an one-time initial issue fee of the equivalent of USD 350 has a lot to commend.

73/
Karl-Arne
SM0AOM

 

When the Foundation lic was introduced it was the beginning of the free for all slowly but surely the W.I.A pushed for more priviledges for Foundation Lic holders now they have basically what standard lic have even now callsigns u dont know what class lic they are no fee lets just give Ham lic out no exams etc not far of now.

 

I got renewed at the end of the year before any fees kick in so I am good for 10 years. And I used the ARRL member service to get it done, pretty much pain free. However, if hams start paying for their usage, they should expect tougher enforcement such as cleaning up the blatant QRMers and investigating noisy imported products.

 

well maybe if more hams gave back say in public service we would be seen as a needed entity
its surprising if you talk to non amateurs how many in society have no idea what we do or who we are
that image is so wrong and has become the norm for decades
there is nothing that keeps ham radio different from these other services in their eyes

 

THIS!

Yep, "free" almost always means no value.

 

ya but its fun to read complaints over dumb things....

 

Hi Peter, thanks for bringing this to our attention. We all need to discuss this important issue. I support the no change approach.

73 de Geoff vk3sq