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 Previous: Amateur Radio Volunteers on Duty in Wilma's Wake |  Next: QRP Community: I've Been Meaning to Do That! |
NEWINGTON, CT, Oct 26, 2005--Australia has introduced an entry-level Foundation Amateur Radio license and established a new overall licensing and certification structure. The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) put the new regulations into effect October 19. Other rule changes combined Novice and Novice Limited licensees into a new Standard license class, and all Limited, Intermediate and Unrestricted licensees are now Advanced licensees with full amateur privileges. Wireless Institute of Australia (WIA) President Michael Owen, VK3KI, welcomed the "long-awaited" changes--in particular the new Foundation license--and expressed the hope that they would encourage newcomers.
"We also know that there will be many amateurs operating on the 40 and 20-meter bands for the first time with those bands available to Standard licensees," he said. "We urge all amateurs to make all these newcomers welcome." Owen also praised ACMA for what he called its "cooperative approach" in establishing examination standards and procedures.
 Amanda Gray, VK4FRST, the first Australian Foundation licensee (left) with WIA President Michael Owen, VK3WI. [WIA Photo] |
The first Foundation license was issued October 21 to Amanda Gray, who requested the call sign VK4FRST before knowing that hers was, in fact, the first Australian Foundation license issued. ACMA has adopted the distinctive and unusual four-letter suffix starting with "F" for all VK Foundation licensees. A legal secretary, Gray says her husband Chris, VK4XWD, encouraged her to take a Foundation training course in September. More than a dozen others also qualified at the same session.
Foundation licensees will have limited access to 80, 40, 15 and 10 meters as well as the entire 2 meter and 70 cm bands using voice modes or "hand-keyed" CW only (ie, no keyboard or computer-generated code). Licensees will be permitted to run up to 10 W on SSB and 3 W on AM, FM and CW--although the WIA wants ACMA to increase that limit to 10 W as well. Foundation licensees may only use commercially manufactured transmitters. The new license is similar to the Foundation class license that's been available in Great Britain since 2002.
In addition to creation of the new Foundation license, ACMA amended Australia's Amateur Radio regulations to regulate by necessary bandwidth rather than by emission mode. The new rules permit the use of any emission mode with a bandwidth not exceeding 8 kHz.
Former Novice--now Standard--licensee Ashley Geelan, VK3HAG, pointed out that the changes also mean that many Australian amateurs will be permitted to use EchoLink and IRLP nodes. The old rules prohibited such operation because the output frequency would be on portions of VHF and UHF bands that were unavailable to Novice licensees.
Australian Standard licensees now have access to all of 80, 40, 20, 15 and 10 meters using any permissible mode at a maximum power of 30 W for CW, AM and FM and 100 W on SSB. They also gain all of 6 and 2 meters as well as the 70, 23, 13 and 6 cm bands, and may use any mode.
Said Owen: "The WIA believes that these changes to the Australian amateur license structure will strengthen our hobby and encourage many more people to become licensed radio amateurs."
More
information on the Australian Amateur Radio regulatory changes is on the
ACMA Web site.
| Previous: Amateur Radio Volunteers on Duty in Wilma's Wake | Next: QRP Community: I've Been Meaning to Do That! |
