Your licence is due for renewal but

[VK3SJ]

The ACMA has introduced the new spectrum software management system and all license renewals will soon only be able to be renewed over the internet. The ACMA will no longer send renewal letters or issue paper licenses. What arrangements are the ACMA going to make for amateurs who do not have the internet.

If amateur licensing is such a hassle why doesn't the ACMA abolish license renewal fees that amateurs in other countries enjoy after all you get no service from the ACMA. It has been noted recently that there has been a considerable drop in the number of license holders in Australia, Maybe it is about time the whole issue be reviewed.

[VK2AAH]

Refer them to a suitable retirement village? Ouch... I better be careful, I don't want to earn a "Shoot All Those Over 50" T shirt that some here wear... but really!

Your argument involves a very long stretch in logic... ACMA want to reduce expenditure, where have they said they want to reduce income?

If other government agencies can adopt electronic payments as the normal method of payment, the ACMA should have been leading the way. The ACMA database is extremely easy to use and how to use it should be part of the license exam process. Why do we need paper copies of our license other than as proof in some situations? The rest of the time mine gathers dust in a drawer. Scrap them... they serve very little purpose.


Richard
VK2AAH

[VK4GHZ]

...What arrangements are the ACMA going to make for amateurs who do not have the internet.

Home computers have been around for 40 years.
We've had the internet in our homes for just over 20 years.

The average 10 year old child can use a tablet or smart phone.

Does that help put things into perspective for you?

There shouldn't be any residual doubt as to why ham radio died, and a modest license fee had absolutely nothing to do with it.

Refer them to a suitable retirement village? Ouch... I better be careful, I don't want to earn a "Shoot All Those Over 50" T shirt that some here wear... but really!

Not sure about the shooting bit, but we've passed the hat around, and a XXL T-shirt is already in the mail.
Welcome to the club.

[VK4TI]

I simply don't see a problem ,either pay by the website or give them a call on the phone , not hard really ?

[VK4GHZ]

...The ACMA will no longer send renewal letters or issue paper licenses. What arrangements are the ACMA going to make for amateurs who do not have the internet.

Being serious for a moment, have you considering directing this question to the ACMA itself?

I'm sure others here might be interested in knowing what response you received, so please post again after you've called them.

[VK4WDM]

after all you get no service from the ACMA.

Sorry, but this is an ill-informed mindless comment"

Over the past couple of years I have contacted the ACMA about several issues, including technical ones, and found them to be very helpful and I live in a regional city far from their offices.

How much work, along with the WIA, is the ACMA putting in to the new AR LCD? Or perhaps the fairies at the bottom of the garden are doing it?

The ACMA will be actively involved in preparations for the forthcoming ITU Word Radio Conference where issues vital to the future of AR will be discussed, but perhaps the garden gnomes are doing that.

What about the work being done on the re-jigging the 400MHZ segment? If the ACMA did not care about AR (remember some of them are also hams) they could have simply dumped us out of that segment and made the process much easier.

Have you looked at the ham-related material on the ACMA website, especially the very helpful stuff on EMR compliance?

What about the visits that ACMA staff make to radio clubs to explain the LCD and EMR requirements?

Who asked for input from hams on the future of some of our micro wave bands? Why would they bother if they don't care about AR?

Who instigated the study on lifting the power limit to 1000w?

It is about time that we realized that the ACMA are essential to AR and start giving credit where credit is due rather than bagging them when they don't have any right of reply.

I gladly pay my license fee which is only a pittance compared to what other users pay for slices of spectrum.

As for "enjoying" a free license. This is dealt with on other threads, but is worthwhile asking some ZL's and W's what the down-side is.

73

Wayne VK4WDM

[VK3RX]

Over the past couple of years I have contacted the ACMA about several issues, including technical ones, and found them to be very helpful

Likewise, and the rest well said, Wayne.

I'm left with the impression the newbie poster appears to be someone who likes to chuck a hand grenade then disappear.

[VK2JDH]

The ACMA will no longer send renewal letters .

Are 100% sure of that?

[VK2ZRH]

VK3SJ wrote:
The ACMA will no longer send renewal letters .

Pure, unadulterated misinformation for the purpose of spreading FUD (fear - uncertainty - doubt).

The ACMA's policy and procedures concerning Apparatus licence renewals is the same as it has been for yonks. The WIA confirmed this with the ACMA recently. In a nutshell, here it is, as posted to the WIA website on 7 October 2015:

About Renewal Of Licences
All apparatus licence will have an expiry date – this is displayed on the licence document. Approximately three to four weeks before the licence is due to expire, a renewal notice will be sent to the last valid postal address that the ACMA has on record. It is the licensee’s responsibility to keep your postal and residential address current with the ACMA to receive renewal notices. The ACMA is not required by legislation to send reminder notices for the renewal of licences, but does so as a courtesy reminder and to facilitate payment of the renewal fee.

What's that smell? Baked crow in humble pie!

Posted in the interests of spreading the facts.

[VK3SJ]

The first and original issue is IF YOU DON'T HAVE THE INTERNET I am in a location that does not even have mobile phone coverage let alone decent internet.
I did contact the ACMA who stated that the letters are sent out as a courtesy but they are not legally obliged to do so. This is all explained on the WIA website. Yes, you can pay the authority by cheque or money order, but that has to be accompanied by a renewal application or new application form which can be downloaded from the internet. BACK TO THE ORIGINAL PROBLEM. It is up to the license holder to ensure that the license is up to date. As for not receiving a paper copy of the license, point taken, but it is a form of receipt and has the expiry date on it, It still states in the Radio Communications Act 1992 as amended 2015 that this license has to be produced on demand by an authorized officer and is certainly required overseas if you intend to operate under a reciprocal arrangement, I.E. New Zealand
As for the ACMA helping with interference problems I did get them out here looking at severe interference to HF and broadcast reception, they did find the cause but told me the equipment involved was C ticked and little could be done about it. C Tick only means that the equipment will not interfere with services operating above 30mhz although there has been an amendment to this it is to little to late, it matters little that THE HF BAND SECTIONS I OPERATE ON ARE A PRIMARY AMATEUR SERVICE.

My brother lives in NZ and is also licensed amateur. Getting what they get for no license fee would suit me down to the ground, They had no problem obtaining high power approval, more operating band space and they do take interference matters seriously. I do not mind paying a license fee, I do object to getting nothing for it. I have been a licensed amateur for over 40 years now and I have seen a quite a bit happen with respect to the hobby in that time, one thing that has not changed is the passion most amateurs feel about the hobby and that what annoys me may not annoy you and visa versa, because our personal circumstances are probably different. Picture yourself living next door to a couple of plasma TVs that buzz away 18 hours a day and get told that because they are C ticked, there is nothing we can do about it. I have been involved with repair and maintenance of broadcast equipment for considerable period of my working life. Yes I am relatively new to posting, Yes I do have internet at the moment and don't see the need to continue paying top dollar for a third world service. I do not believe we should be forced to have the internet to pay bills or conduct day to day transactions. Maybe I should have been a bit more specific when I started the original post.

[VK4TI]

I am amazed you have so many issues , I got my form by snail mail recently , picked up the phone and called them (cc in hand) , a week or so later the new paperwork arrived all paid for , simple and easy none of it needing the nett
As for the interferance it bears looking into imho as the device may well not be compliant and that is a simple matter to determine as you are aware , being ticked makes nothing cetain when operating , your going to need some persistance to clear it up but it can be done , I was getting interference from Radio Australia years back and the dept was very helpful in solving the problem

[VK3SJ]

Roger, I am not against paying a license fee as such and I am aware that there is a lobby group partitioning for just that, You Know who they are and so do I, I am not one of them. The Spectra system was introduced to make licensing a totally paperless transaction but as you know there has been quite a few teething problems with that software to date causing licensees to disappear or end up with call signs double issued etc. I am sure that this will be sorted eventually. I have been dealing with the ACMA and its predecessors for a very long time now and my source of information is not here say. The ACMA has said they would like to palm the whole amateur licensing issue. to a third party, possibly the WIA, as most of the functions has been transferred already i.e License evaluation and call sign issue. This is also in line with current government policy. The ACMA only has about 4 officers in the field here in VK3 to deal with interference problems and complaints by amateurs take a very low priority. As I have said I have had the radio inspectors out here and I still have the same problem caused by the same cause, make your own judgement on that. Current policy of the ACMA is to send renewals out in the mail as a courtesy, not because they are legally obliged to. The Radio Communication Act make it quite clear that the licensee is responsible to pay license fees on time, not the ACMA.

[VK2JDH]

Current policy of the ACMA is to send renewals out in the mail as a courtesy, not because they are legally obliged to. .

They have had the rider for as long as I can remember. It's to cover them in case some forgets to renew and claims 'you did not send a renewal'

Here is a pro tip: The ACMA will pro rata the 'second' year of your license ( on renewal) to line up with your birthdate.

[VK3DXE]

This thread prompted me to sort out my license renewal today. I don't recall receiving my renewal notice this year, but I may have misplaced it - the past couple of months have been stupidly hectic at work.

Anyways, all it took was a quick call to the as-always extremely helpful ladies Melbourne office, and the renewal was emailed to me within a very short time. Finding the payment portal was a little tricky - just a little poor web design there, which meant the links to it aren't immediately obvious upon a quick scan of the page. But once I got to the appropriate page, all it took was my invoice number, which then auto-filled the payment amount, and all was done in a matter of a couple of minutes.

[VK3DXE]

Over the past couple of years I have contacted the ACMA about several issues, including technical ones, and found them to be very helpful

Likewise, and the rest well said, Wayne.

I'm left with the impression the newbie poster appears to be someone who likes to chuck a hand grenade then disappear.

x3

He'll no doubt scamper back to 40m or 160m AM to tell tales about the bullies on the higher bands

[VK6ADF]

If you find the payment portal awkward (I have absolutely no idea what it is or what it looks like) Why not pay by Bpay. That's how I have paid for years.

and for the record I got my paper renewal about a month before my license expired when it arrived early August and my paper receipt/station license arrived last week.

[VK4WDM]

VK3SJ wrote

"

Picture yourself living next door to a couple of plasma TVs that buzz away 18 hours a day"

I don't won't to take this thread off on a tangent, but I would like to offer some encouragement to VK3SJ on the way through.

We can picture that. All hams living in suburbia have your problem, not just with TV but solar power and all sorts of other crap. I suggest you have a look at the interference topic in the forums. There is some very useful material there that can help. I brought a Timewave ANC-4 Noise Cancelling Device (worth every cent), and moved a lot of my HF operating to digital modes such as JT65 and PSK which cope better with high noise levels. I also found that a horizontal loop is much less prone to picking up interference than verticals or dipoles.

73

Wayne VK4WDM

[VK3ALB]

The ACMA has introduced the new spectrum software management system and all license renewals will soon only be able to be renewed over the internet. The ACMA will no longer send renewal letters or issue paper licenses. What arrangements are the ACMA going to make for amateurs who do not have the internet.

Not sure where this information came from but I received a paper "license validation notice" in my grossly underused letterbox and it says quite clearly that I will soon receive a license renewal notice. This tallies exactly with the details of a recent WIA news item on this subject.

Where is it said they will not be sending renewal letters?

[VK3AV]

Sorry to resurrect an old thread but there is a reason...

One of my licences was due for renewal in mid-May 2016. I had received the 'do you still want this' letter from the ACMA and subsequently the Licence Renewal Notice. This I paid via BPay on 3 May 2016 - some 10 days in advance of the payment due date. Apparently there were some problems with the BPay transactions around that time which would not be apparent to the remitter.

Today - 14 June 2016 - I received 2 letters in the post from the ACMA.

- The first dated 16 May 2016 (remember it arrived 14 June) stated that as I had not made the payment the licence was now cancelled.
- The second letter dated 17 May 2016 (remember it also arrived 14 June) was the Renewal of Apparatus Licence letter thanking me for renewing the licence and detailing the new 2017 expiry date.

First I checked the ACMA Licence database and all looked to be good. Then I called the ACMA and spoke to a very helpful person who also checked the situation, confirmed that all was good and apologised for confusion. She will be referring it to the tech team as clearly there are still problems with that system.

As an aside, I was told that BPay payments can take more days than you think to make it through the banking system then it ends up at the ACMA end in a consolidated revenue account and could take some to find if there was a systems problem. The suggestion was that credit card payment and even calling them to make that payment was instant and far more reliable especially if you were close to the expiry date.

In the end it was all a on-issue but highlighted some ongoing problems with the system.

So, if you also receive some correspondence it is worth a call to the ACMA to ensure that all is good.

Regards
Bernard

[VK3MIX]

I received my "licence renewal application" probably late April early May despite the issue date being late March for my licence which were to expire late June.
Only today did I receive my renewal notice with 5 days to pay, the issue date being early June. Is the ACMA being slack and delaying the post or is Australia Post to blame?