Tunisia issues personal licenses to operate

(I gotta post this. Extremely groovy,
Manhattan Transfer - Another Night in Tunisia (a cappella) with Bobby McFerrin and John Hendricks



(I have a huge crush on Janis Siegel. Took my GF to 3 MT shows last year. Sat in front. Drooled on myself. Now I have a crush on Cheryl Bentene too.)

oh, serious ham biz: I hope the new OPs get some "Italian amplifiers" and visit the west coast!

 

Only three operators? Must be a bear of an exam...

 

Interesting. Even under a communist totalitarian dictatorship Cuba has had individual stations as I have worked more than half a dozen different ones.

 

I lived in Turkmenistan! It was legal to have a Ham license (Back then), but I never bothered..There was so much corruption, I did not want to end up in their jail. I was there for 12 months...I brought my Ham equipment, but simply sold to a Turkmenistan Ham operator...It was about 23 years ago...!

About Tunisia, I was in North Africa, including Morocco, Egypt, Libya, and in the Middle East..Tunisia ironically is consider the most progressive (Towards Europe way of life)..I am surprised to see the late delay of having Ham operations at their home....

Welcome Tunisia Ham Operators!

I was in Morocco with my Ham equipment, That was a blast! (Met my wife there as well / She is on my QRZ Page). Met with CN8ST.(Tarrick) while I was there...We had way to much fun! I was there about 8 months..


Cheers

NN2X
Tom

 

Excellent. Clubs are fine, but not to have a personal station since independence must have rankled. I thoroughly enjoyed visiting this friendly, beautiful and historic country and wish all the operators success and good DX, inshallah.

.

 

I think a lot of hams don't realise how fortunate they are if their administration provides essentially open access to the allocated spectrum with little fear or concern. Examine in detail the tribulations of being a ham in many less advanced countries and you might be shocked. Here in Thailand an unlicensed radio is classified in the same league as an unlicensed firearm, access to spectrum is significantly restricted with no access above 3.6MHz on 80m, no 60m, no 6m, no 70cm. No access to many u-wave bands. Irregular testing for HF licenses. Importation of equipment requires onerous licensing and type approval testing for every item, not just a sample.

Things are changing here thanks to some excellent local ham activity but it is a slow process. It only took almost 30 years to gain access to WARC 1979 authorised bands.

In many countries amateur radio is far from encouraged and sometimes only barely tolerated.

Well done to the 3V8's it can't have been easy and I do hope to hear them on, there will be much demand for them.

 

We certainly are fortunate, and these privileges should be carefully guarded by keeping high technical and operational standards, and also by having good relations with the regulators, both by avoiding in-fighting and the constant complaining, whining, demanding and moaning in the contacts with the Administration.

However,also the Administrations in many developed countries have grown more and more tired of amateur radio for the above-mentioned reasons, and a new generation of spectrum bureaucrats cannot understand the value for society by providing access to commercially valuable spectrum for an ageing bunch of people that give nothing back except complaints.

Harsh, but unfortunately true in too many countries.

73/
Karl-Arne
SM0AOM

 

Was there in September. Nice country! My congratulationst tunisian radio amateurs! Hope to got new QSOs wit them!

 

Voilà une bonne nouvelle pour les OM Tunisiens, il était difficile d'imaginer ce manque de liberté individuelle !
Voila un grand pas de fait.
A+Chris

 

Voilà enfin une bonne initiative doivent dire les OM Tunisiens !
Ils pourrons avoir une station dans la Maison...
Bon trafic et bonne année.
Salut depuis la Suisse.
HB9EPC Chris

 

hpe to wkd with tunisia

 

I operated there as K9LJB/3V8 in 1969 when I was there with Project Hope. 3V8AC was licensed there in Tunis, at that time, but was not a Tunisian, he was with the USAID program working with their telecommunication folks. This is great news for them.

I saw the comment about how close it is to Italy. I remember watching Italian TV while I was there. It's that close.

 

No problem with hearing Italian stations here or even Russian stations even though the sunspots are nonexistent its just that no one is really trying hard enough to push through contacts even though there are people on the air. Stop relying on the waterfall and start making some DX calls and see what you can find out there. I turn around an look at CW or FT8 and I see quite a number of stations using those modes. Most hams have 100 watt rigs and with proper antennas you can still work 2000 to 5000 mile contacts from Eastern North America to Europe and South/Central America and North Africa. Now at this point distant stations in Siberia and the Far East might be very difficult to impossible but there is still DX out there especially if you don't rely on the waterfall or the DX spotting programs. If you wait for someone else to make a contact it will never happen and that's the main problem right now.

 

Here's the way that you keep the powers that be at bay is by using the frequencies that are allocated. That means using 80 meters, 75 meters, 40 meters, 20 meters, 15, 12, 10, etc. If some bureaucrat can turn on the radio and hear nothing but either dead air or blatant stupidity being expressed by the participants they are going to have more reason to have a dim view of radio amateurs. If you're one of the serial violators of the airways playing tapes, music, cussing and causing problems I am looking at you. If you operate with a general modicum of courtesy and use the bands responsibly and intelligently you're going to make a much better impression. That all depends on the amateur community and whether they really want to have the enjoyment or usage of ham radio frequencies in the future. Right now we have an administration that is finding ways to sell off resources including band space for telecommunications companies and I wouldn't be surprised at some point to see the 440 band or other bands be sold off to the highest bidder for the spectrum.

There's not a lot of ability to use HF for such communications because of the international agreements and propagation of HF communications but that also means that either you use it or you lose it. The choice is up to you to either complain, groan and moan or get off your rear end and either use the spectrum and clean up the riff raff and malcontents consistently causing issues and all you have to do is listen to the trash heaps on 75 meters these days and a couple on 40 meters.

 

Glad for the Tunisians for being able to operate their own personal stations so they can enjoy the hobby and service and be of service to their countrymen. Let's hope this is a step forward in the liberalization of communications for not only Tunisia but also other countries that have had restrictions for years on personal communications. There are plenty of countries in Africa, the Middle East and Asia that could use liberalization of communications and Americans don't appreciate what they have and what they are able to do with a minimalist rig, power and a wire antenna or be able to have elaborate personal stations.