Renewing Amateur Licences

Recently an amateur forgot to renew his licence because he failed to advise the ACMA of his new address, and was upset when his two letter callsign was allocated to someone else.

The "Comment" in the June 2009 issue of Amateur Radio addressed this problem in some detail, and further information can be found on the WIA website www.wia.org.au under the tab "Australian amateur licensing and callsigns" under the button "Get your Amateur Radio Licence".

The Radiocommunications Act does not impose on ACMA an obligation to issue a renewal notice. ACMA does so, but failure to receive a renewal notice is no excuse for not renewing a licence.

Obviously, failing to notify the ACMA of a change of address will mean that even if the ACMA does send a renewal notice, it will go the wrong address. But the Act does provide that a licence can be renewed from 6 months before and 60 days after its expiry date. It is the licensee’s responsibility to ensure that the licence is renewed in that time.

A callsign is only a condition of a licence, and if the licence is not renewed, after 60 days from the expiry date the callsign will be placed on the Public List, (the list of available callsigns on the WIA website) and after 7 days the WIA will issue a Callsign Recommendation to whoever wants that callsign.

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