Amateur radio licensing in Australia

In Australia, amateur radio licensing is governed by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) under federal regulations. Licences to operate amateur stations are granted to individuals of any age after they demonstrate a knowledge of the appropriate Amateur Operator's Certificate of Proficiency syllabus for their license grade. Operator's licences are divided into different classes, and offer different operating privileges in accordance with the increasing knowledge required per licence class. Over time these classes and their knowledge requirements have changed and there now remain three different classes.

Current licence classes

The ACMA currently issues[1] the following grades of licence.

Also issued to amateurs are Repeater and Beacon licences. These are issued to qualified radio amateurs that wish to operate an Amateur radio repeater or beacon respectively.

Radio Operator testing and licensing

In March 2019, the Australian Maritime College of the University of Tasmania was awarded by the Australian Communications and Media Authority a Deed of Agreement to provide Amateur Radio license testing for Australia, and administration of license issue recommendations to ACMA. AMC has established a system of exam invigilators, often associated with Amateur Radio Clubs, who receive license tests from AMC upon application by candidates, conduct the test session, and return the tests to AMC for marking and further administration. While ACMA formally issues licenses, it does so upon advice from ACM that also administers beacon and repeater licenses, and changes of licenses.[2][3]

Class License Changes 2023 (effective 2024)

In 2024 ACMA will no longer issue amateur unassigned licenses to individuals. A class license will replace these arrangements and is due to be released in late 2023. [4]

The bandplan and conditions of use will be unchanged; the bands and powers an individual can use, and the operating procedures, will be the same. The difference will be that the qualification itself plus an allocated callsign will be sufficient to use the amateur frequencies, skipping the additional recurring fees, paperwork and bureaucracy of individual licenses. This is an intentional deregulation in order to reduce the costs.

Repeaters and beacons will still require allocated licences.

As per the 2019 changes[5] AMC will continue to provide callsigns.[6]

References
  1. Infrastructure. "Radiocommunications Licence Conditions (Amateur Licence) Determination 2015". www.legislation.gov.au. Retrieved 2020-06-29.
  2. Amateur Radio, AMC, 2019
  3. Changes to amateur radio qualifications Archived 2019-05-15 at the Wayback Machine, ACMA, 2019-03-07, accessed 2019-05-15
  4. "Proposed amateur class licensing arrangements and higher power operation". ACMA. September 2022.
  5. "Changes to amateur radio call sign policy". ACMA.
  6. "Amateur Radio - Australian Maritime College". Australian Maritime College - University of Tasmania, Australia. Retrieved 2023-10-04.
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