CCARC NEWS 15-25
THE PERIODIC NEWSLETTER OF THE CENTRAL COAST AMATEUR RADIO CLUB
ISSUE No 15-25 7th August 2015
In this Issue:
- Meeting This Saturday
- Shahzada August 22-28 operators required
- Saturday Morning Meetings
- ACMA licensing shut-down announced
- Update to Permitted Equipment for Amateur Use
- History This Week
- Broke & fixed
- Reminders
1. Meeting This Saturday
Saturday 8th August 2015, commencing at 1300 hours will be the CNC WICEN Meeting.
2. Shahzada August 22-28 operators required
Enhance your radio experience.
Apply your radio skills to a practical application.
Meet lots of interesting people.
Thoroughly enjoy yourself for a week.
What is this you ask !!!
Shahzada Calls.
A horse ride endurance event.
Last full week of August, 22 to 28th.
Location, St Albans a small, pleasant and historically beautiful village just past Wisemans Ferry. A good excuse to camp out for a week.
Radio operators required to pass progress reports and supply emergency comms when necessary.
All under control and coordinated by a base station.
A full 5 days of your time would be appreciated.
Then again, even one day only would be of great help.
Contact Col (vk2zco) 4324 5576 for details.
3. Saturday Morning Meetings
It might only be that it is winter, but there has been a fall-off recently in attendance on Saturdays, there are no useful P&D projects at the moment. A few of us got talking and came up with the following possible answer.
Sam VK2ZZ
On the Saturdays when there is no meeting or Lecture, we ask that anyone having problems with their electronic equipment to bring it to the club.
There is usually enough expertise turning up on Saturdays to sort out a lot of the problems. The club has test equipment and tools for members use.
Anyone bringing in any gear is asked to also bring any manuals they have.
4. ACMA licensing shut-down announced
The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has announced that it will suspend all apparatus licence processing from Friday August 14 to Tuesday September 1, to replace its licensing and frequency processing system. The ACMA in announcing this two week closure, acknowledges the need to bring a more efficient process to Apparatus licences, which are widely used including by the Amateur Service.
The Wireless Institute of Australia highly recommends that if your licence is due for renewal during the closure period, to immediately renew it even if this is well before its expiry date. If you or your club need to renew a licence for a 6 metre beacon on a frequency below 52MHz prior to September 9, please contact the WIA immediately. This is because the ACMA are not renewing beacon or repeater licences below 52MHz after September 9, and the shut-down may affect any that have still not been renewed.
The ACMA in a statement said that during the shut-down, there will be no apparatus licences processed, device registrations or licence renewals. Processing of them resumes on Wednesday September 2. Most licensees will not notice the shut-down, but in some cases the ACMA warns there may be delays. Although the shut-down period has been announced, the ACMA foreshadowed the new HELMS system earlier this year.
Author : Jim Linton VK3PC
Source: WIA News
5. Update to Permitted Equipment for Amateur Use
Sometimes a radio amateur is unsure of the type of transmitting equipment they can possess. This doubt may arise as the result of ACMA compliance activities involving station inspections, for example.
The WIA has successfully argued to the ACMA that compliance issues are, in almost all cases, one of behavior (illegal acts), rather than defining compliance with what type or classes of equipment a radio amateur may possess or operate.
Every amateur licensee needs to read and understand the Amateur Licence Condition Determination (LCD Link ). This sets out, in detail, the conditions under which licensed amateurs can operate their stations. The term ‘operate’, for the purposes of the LCD, means to cause a transmitter to transmit or cease to transmit.
In Australia, the ACMA has powers to make Standards (technical specifications) for radiocommunications equipment under the Radiocommunications Act 1992. However, the primary tenets of the Amateur Radio service are technical investigation, experimentation and self-training; hence, Australian Standards for radiocommunications equipment are not applicable to amateur stations.
There are no specific standards for equipment that is manufactured specifically for the world-wide amateur market. Note, however, there are some general technical conditions that apply to every amateur licence, and these are found in the LCD.
Put simply:
an amateur transmitter, while required to meet certain technical standards in the LCD, does not have to comply with an Australian Standard, or be ‘type approved’;
an amateur (other than a Foundation licensee) may build a transmitter;
an amateur (other than a Foundation licensee) may modify a transmitter built for other services, so that it can work on an amateur band or bands; and
all amateur licensees must operate any transmitter in accordance with the LCD, or any other condition printed on the licence issued to them.
Therefore, no matter what amateur licence (Foundation, Standard or Advanced) you hold, you may possess any piece of equipment manufactured specifically for the global amateur market, provided that you operate it in accordance with the type of licence you hold, even if the item of equipment is capable of operating in certain spectrum segments that are not available to amateurs in Australia.
A Foundation licensee may build or modify transmitting equipment to operate on the amateur bands for their own self-training, but can not operate it. Such equipment can only be operated by an amateur holding a licence appropriate to the equipment’s capabilities.
Foundation Licence, permitted equipment
Essentially, the Foundation Licence is an operator licence that requires a minimum of technical knowledge that will allow safe operation of amateur radio equipment.
A Foundation licensee can only operate (that is, transmit with) commercially manufactured amateur equipment, is restricted to defined frequency bands and emission modes set out in the LCD, and is limited to 10 watts transmitter output power.
Allowed Equipment for Standard and Advanced licensees
As the radio amateur has a licence, during an ACMA station inspection the presumption is that the possession of radiocommunications equipment is for the purpose of operation (that is, transmitting). But if the item of equipment can be operated in accordance with the licence type, or modified to operate in accordance with the appropriate licence conditions, the possession cannot be unlawful, in the absence of other evidence.
An Advanced or Standard licensee may modify a transmitter manufactured for another service that is subject to a ‘Standard’ (technical specification), but in doing so, the equipment becomes what is known as ‘Non-Standard’ and therefore cannot legally be used outside amateur radio spectrum. Modification means removing or altering components, including the microphone, as well as changing firmware or software features that existed when the device complied with the Standard for another service.
Prohibited Equipment
Should equipment manufactured for the amateur market be modified to operate outside amateur spectrum, it cannot lawfully be operated on the Citizens Band, Maritime Band, Land Mobile or other bands, as equipment used by these services is required to comply with specific Australian equipment standards.
Summary
It is expected that all radio amateurs will act in a responsible manner (behaviour), and comply with their individual licence conditions as set out in the LCD.
See also Station Inspections, at this Link
If you have a question on the use of radio equipment on the amateur bands, please send an email to the nationaloffice@wia.org.au setting out your question or concerns.
Author : Roger Harrison – VK2ZRH
Source: WIA News
History This Week
A look back at events that made history this week – compiled by the Summerland Amateur Radio Club of Lismore, NSW
Monday, 3 August, 2015
1181 Supernova observed by Chinese & Japanese astronomers
1709 First known ascent in hot-air balloon, Bartolomeu de Gusmao (indoors)
1774 Priestly discovers oxygen as “dephlogisticated air”.
1829 “Stourbridge Lion” locomotive goes into service, England.
1831 First US steam engine train run (Albany to Schenectady, NY)
1858 The laying of the west end of the first transatlantic cable was completed by the ship Niagra
1919 First air flight over a major body of water in Australia (Harry Butler)
1945 Atom Bomb dropped on Hiroshima (Aug 6th in Japan)
1956 First motorcycle rode over 200 mph (Wilhelm Herz-210 mph/338 kph)
1959 Explorer 6 transmits first TV photo of Earth from space
1977 Radio Shack issues a press release introducing the TRS-80 computer. 25 existed, within weeks thousands were ordered
BROKE & FIXED
The CCARC Website has crashed.
The Kariong antennas have been damaged and are being repaired.
REMINDERS
This section lists important announcements and possibly items from previous CCARC NEWS editions that are still current and may need your input:
Anyone reading this on the website who is not yet a member of the CCARC, please consider joining by emailing ccarc at ccarc dot org dot au for full details.
For submissions to this newsletter from CCARC club members please email the editor news-editor at ccarc dot org dot au
For what’s coming up in the next few months at the CCARC, please check the club calendar, accessible from the header on any page on the website.
Dave VK2DLS … News & Publicity Officer …
